Mass Effect Tips & Tricks

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It's clear to me that in their zeal to streamline the RPG part of Mass Effect, Bioware took it too far and didn't even bother explaining how some of the fundamental rules and game mechanics work. Why can't you control other party members better at hacking when you need to enter a computer? How do I upgrade weapons?

This thread is for Mass Effect tips and tricks, it is NOT for impressions or spoiler discussion. That thread is here.

A few things to get us rolling:

Hacking, Electronics, etc.
For skills like hacking and first aid, it's the combined skill of your active party that actually affects the outcome. So if you have someone really good at hacking, when you approach a computer and initiate the hack their skill plays into the action even though it's your character doing the task. Same goes for the first aid skill tree. Combat skills are all limited to the specific person they're applied to, far as I can tell.

Upgrading a Weapon
When you have a weapon, armor, etc. equipped in the Equipment screen, press 'X' and you can apply different upgrades to it. You can also remove them and use them somewhere else. Make sure you upgrade your armor too!

Melee combat
Haven't done this myself, but if you're close to an enemy, just face them and press shoot. You should smack him with your gun.

Shid's Tip #1: Read the manual. Many reviewers and even Penny Arcade bemoaned that Bioware didn't show them how to control the Mako, how to control combat etc. They're just really used to being forced through unskippable tutorial levels that show you how to walk forward and jump. All that information is in the manual, which you should read rather than being confused.

In the other thread someone was complaining about the slow movement speed. I haven't tried it yet since I just read it this morning, but in the manual it says you can run by holding the A button -- although that may only work with your weapon holstered.

I haven't tried it yet since I just read it this morning, but in the manual it says you can run by holding the A button

It sort of works... kind of like a gimped roadie run from Gears.

I'm pretty sure you are able to run with your weapon out.

zeroKFE wrote:

In the other thread someone was complaining about the slow movement speed. I haven't tried it yet since I just read it this morning, but in the manual it says you can run by holding the A button -- although that may only work with your weapon holstered.

It works with the weapon out, too, but that could just be for the soldier class. Another tip: talk to everyone. You get bonus XP just for being a chatterbox.

That's good to know about the hacking skills. I wanted to make my ultimate hacker/sniper guy, but now i'm going to toss more into combat and just make one of my noobs the hacker.

Yeah the dash is kinda gimped. I must be doing it wrong because it doesn't work all the time for me.

Here's an interesting control tip I found in the manual that I imagine alot of people will overlook.

To throw a grenade press the BACK button. The grenade will have a 10 second fuse, however you can trigger the grenade at any time during those 10 seconds by pressing the BACK button again. Only you can throw grenades...and prevent forest fires.

I couldn't tell how much of a "cool-down" I had on my RB biotic skills, is there a way of finding that out?

Certis wrote:

Hacking, Electronics, etc.
For skills like hacking and first aid, it's the combined skill of your active party that actually affects the outcome. So if you have someone really good at hacking, when you approach a computer and initiate the hack their skill plays into the action even though it's your character doing the task. Same goes for the first aid skill tree.

So it takes the highest skill from the party, or does it do some kind of average? Just for clarity.

7inchsplit wrote:

So it takes the highest skill from the party, or does it do some kind of average? Just for clarity.

I think it means that it adds up all the skills that the party has. A + B + C = Skill for event.

I was just wondering if anyone has gotten any of the licenses? I can't remember exactly where I got them, but they are from different people scattered throughout the citadel, and all they say is something about the quartermaster on the Normandy. Just wondering if anyone knows what they do?

On the dash topic, I tried it on my lunch break and I couldn't run while I was in the Citadel. I think you can only use it in combat.

Any thoughts as to the breaking down of objects? Is it worth it, or should I just sell them ?

Mr E.B. Slugworth wrote:

I was just wondering if anyone has gotten any of the licenses? I can't remember exactly where I got them, but they are from different people scattered throughout the citadel, and all they say is something about the quartermaster on the Normandy. Just wondering if anyone knows what they do?

I believe they let the equipment seller on the Normandy provide a wider range of products (adding products from whichever company's license you purchased).

I thought you couldn't sell objects? I always reduce unwanted stuff to omni-gel right away, as the inventory can get awfully difficult to navigate very fast.

I wrote about some unclear stuff to Bioware's customer care and got a very prompt, detailed answer to everything I asked about. Nice.

The one that hasn't been mentioned here is "how do you get more grenades". Answer: they're random loot, I've just been very unlucky with them.

Regarding allies using melee attacks: they do it automatically if they end up in close quarters, but they tend to avoid that. So probably not the best idea to spend your customization slot on the motorized joints.

Another bit, quoted from the customer care reply:

"Ally skills are used automatically when applicable. For example, if a
locked crate is present, the party member with the highest rating in the
proper stat (decryption or electronics) will be used to determine if the
crate can be opened by Shepard. In the cases of First Aid and Medicine,
the talent bonuses are added passively. That is, if a henchman has +60
healing from first aid, your heal command will heal for 60 more damage,
as long as that party member is in your squad. Likewise, if the party
member's Medicine talent gives -10% cool down on healing, your healing
recharge time will gain the appropriate time multiplier automatically."

So it's not identical between first aid and technical skills. If I'm reading this correcctly, with tech skills only the highest score counts, with first aid/medicine, it's all cumulative.

jlaakso wrote:

I thought you couldn't sell objects? I always reduce unwanted stuff to omni-gel right away, as the inventory can get awfully difficult to navigate very fast.

They clarified that in the podcast. Gotta use one of the 'sticks.

however you can trigger the grenade at any time during those 10 seconds by pressing the BACK button again.

Thank you! The fuse on those things did seem way too long.

So far I'm not far enough into the game to tell how beneficial my party members' particular attributes will be. I'm not sure how valuable biotics skills are vs. regular ol' soldiering skills, for example. No matter how I mix it up, I seem to be doing OK.

Try this thread at Qt3 as well:

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=40125

I just got the LCE in the mail from futureshop and a cool 3 hours later I'm loving it to death.

I recommend walking throughout the Citadel instead of taking fast transport as you'll come across more random encounters as the game progresses.

I have a tip! If you need to pause during any of the frequent long unpausable cutscenes, hit the guide button.

If I go to a planet and discover I've bitten off more than I can chew, how the heck do I get out? I pretty much get to a point where I trigger a cutscene, get blasted by a behemoth and die, and I have pretty much no time to react. Either I've done something wrong or Im not supposed to be there yet. Either way I want to leave and try someplace else. I drove the Mako back to the starting area and the (gamefly's version of the) manual says X will return to the Normandy when you're on the map screen.

X does nothing here. Help!

Edit: Looks like you can't leave a story planet (thanks Danjo) I ended up having to set the difficulty down to get through that battle, yuck.

The controls for the Mako seem to switch whenever you enter the zoom mode. The left stick normally makes the Mako drive in the direction you're pointing it at; left on the stick makes the Mako go to the left of the screen, for instance. That seems to change abruptly whenever you aim the cannon. It's this sudden (and as far as I can tell undocumented) change that makes me wish that you didn't have to rely on the Mako so often on planet missions.

I may be a little confused, but there seems to be a bug with increasing your squaddies' encryption/electronics ratings and actually getting a benefit other than unlocking medium/hard etc from it.

Before restarting my 360 when I boosted a squadmate's stats significantly, a manual decryption would take like 6 button presses if it was 'easy'
After restarting, it only takes 3. Something to keep in mind if hacking is getting you down.

Selling equipment... Seems there's a hidden function on the vendor screen. Flip the stick left and right and the little, inscrutable wording at the bottom changes to allow for selling, buying back, etc.

TheWanderer wrote:

Selling equipment... Seems there's a hidden function on the vendor screen. Flip the stick left and right and the little, inscrutable wording at the bottom changes to allow for selling, buying back, etc.

Dont bother selling, I don't think its worth it. The purchasable items are ridiculously expensive compared to the tiny amounts you get for vendoring. Omni gelling the items seems to be more worth it in the long run.

Any thoughts on how two squad members which are a biotic multiclass compare to one who is full biotic? Ditto with tech. I reckon that I'll be taking Ashley with me a lot since she's a full soldier (I'm the half tech/half soldier type), but I'm unsure whether to take the half tech/half biotic squaddie or the full biotic one (who I assume is the squad member I haven't got yet, but she's an Asari so it would make sense for her to be a full biotic since then your squaddie options cover all the possible classes and combinations).

My tip: I've been making use of the set waypoint function in the map, I find the north marker to be easily lost on the radar control.

HantaXP wrote:
TheWanderer wrote:

Selling equipment... Seems there's a hidden function on the vendor screen. Flip the stick left and right and the little, inscrutable wording at the bottom changes to allow for selling, buying back, etc.

Dont bother selling, I don't think its worth it. The purchasable items are ridiculously expensive compared to the tiny amounts you get for vendoring. Omni gelling the items seems to be more worth it in the long run.

When you start acquiring items in the IV, V and VI range, that'll change. Though, by that time, you'll be picking up so much money off of dead combatants that you'll barely need it.

Outfitting a character in Mass Effect is less fun than in Bioware's previous games, (except of course Jade Empire which had no inventory to speak of,) because all the weapons are cookie-cutter. Remember when you found Carsomyr in BG2? Remember when you were all like "daaaaaaamn, I found Carsomyr!" or "daaaaamn I found the Celestial Fury," or when you found Lilacror, or the white dragon-scale armor, etc. You just don't get that same sense when you change from "Hurricane IV" to "Hurricane V," you know?

DudleySmith wrote:

Any thoughts on how two squad members which are a biotic multiclass compare to one who is full biotic? Ditto with tech. I reckon that I'll be taking Ashley with me a lot since she's a full soldier (I'm the half tech/half soldier type), but I'm unsure whether to take the half tech/half biotic squaddie or the full biotic one (who I assume is the squad member I haven't got yet, but she's an Asari so it would make sense for her to be a full biotic since then your squaddie options cover all the possible classes and combinations).

I'd suggest avoiding multiclass characters all around. A character, player or buddy, can only really take advantage of one active skill at a time. A specialized character uses a skill to full effect, where a multiclass character generally will not. Might as well make sure that whenever anyone on your side does something, it's full bore. Since your party can have three characters, and there's three things to be, overlap is inefficient.

So that doesn't kill your offensive capability? I imagined that most of the damage I'll be inflicting on enemies will be via the guns, so having one soldier with a big gun and two with pistols (the full biotic and full tech classes just seem to get pistols) didn't seem as poweful as a full soldier, one soldier/tech and one soldier/biotic, who can both train in non-pistol weapons.

A tip for the Mako. The turret on it can't aim downwards, so make sure to keep some distance between you and your enemies or attack them from below.

I'm around ten hours in and really, power has not been a problem. I usually have Ashley, my own biotic/tech character with a pistol and another biotic, also with pistol. The biotic powers can devastate a group of enemies with the first volley. I take damage very rarely and have died once (rushing into a fight).

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