Mass Effect - Help Please :(

buchtis

buchtis

buchtis

Soldato
Joined
23 Oct 2009
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Derbyshire
Started playing Mass Effect today and i've already sunk 8 hours into it, absolutley loving the game!

Anyway, i'm stuck when i'm exploring some planets. Basically I come across these bits of scrap that I can't salvage as my skills are too low but it looks like my team mates skills are adequate enough for the job. No doubt this is me being retarded but I can't select my other team mates or ask them to do it for me and I have no 'Electronics' skill available on my character. This is the 2nd one i've come across now and it's doing my head in. The other one is on a near by planet I think, i'm dong a mission where i'm looking for crew members or something along those lines.

Help please!
 
The stats for those things are always taken from the best member in the squad at the time. so if your best electronics dude is on the ship and you are on the planet go back and add him to the squad. Even then it may not be possible if you are trying to get into stuff higher than you are able to. There are some things that you can only get in once you have full stats in one of those skills.

When I started my second play through I dedicated one character to that kind of stuff and nothing else which meant i've not had to go back to a planet for something because i wasn't adept enough first time there.
 
I've just taken some screenshots of my team that i'm currently with, uploaded them to XFire but it doesn't seem to load for me for some reason. :(

That alien with the masked face and a light for a mouth has a pretty high rating, 6/10 I think and that's still not high enough? Bearing in mind i've only just started exploring the space.

Off topic: Could someone try xfire.com please to see if it's working.
 
xfire.com didnt work for me so it may be down.

the character you are talking about I think is Tali'Zorah the Quarian. Remember that some skills dont open up until other skills have reached a certain level. EG. Hacking isn't available to train until Decryption is at 7.

I cant remember right now what skills you need to open certain things.
 
So come back to these if need be? The are in the secondary tab of the objectives. I'm looking for what happened to a team, found the crash site and got attacked by a couple of Aliens but again can't decrypt/unlock it as my skills level is too low. Guess i'll just carry on playing the main storyline then?
 
Yep, if you can't open it even with Tali in your group, then you have nobody with a high enough skill to do it at the moment. In Mass Effect, you never take direct control of other party members - rather, if one of them has the necessary skill to do something, then you'll just be able to do it straight off.
 
9 decryption and 9 electronics is enough to unlock everything. Take Kaiden, Tali or Garrus, if your not playing a class with these skills.
 
Another tip is to make sure you dont have companion auto levelling enabled in the options. Being able to max electronics and decryption quickly was important to me, as I have terrible "Whatsinthebox-itis" in rpg's :-).
 
Torquar said:
Another tip is to make sure you dont have companion auto levelling enabled in the options. Being able to max electronics and decryption quickly was important to me, as I have terrible "Whatsinthebox-itis" in rpg's :-).
Click to expand...

Indeed :D

Only ranks that matter for opening are the 'hard' ranks, the others just affect its combat damage or whatever slightly. I did max out both techs for opening things asap but you still come across the odd 1 you can't open yet.
 
Sorry for a slight derail, but I've just started ME for the first time and I can't seem to get in to the combat system :( I've read mentions about there being tutorials but can't figure out how to actually find or use them.

So far I've muddled through several encounters but I don't seem to issue commands correctly - I try to tell my squad to use cover but they just stand in the line of fire soaking up bullets and at least one party member dies on the first train encounter.

Can anyone link or post a decent newbie guide on how the combat should flow and how to use the interface effectively? I'd like to be able to toggle the combat HUD on/off similar to KOTOR - holding down space bar while trying to issue various commands is annoying and I don't get a sense of whether any changes I select actually happen or if they have an impact on the encounter.

I also notice the party is getting shot by mobs from a certain distance that have no taget reticule or I just can't get a clear line of sight to shoot back, all the while taking damage around the train. Zooming with a sniper rifle doesn't improve things, sometimes I can hit the mobs but it's not consistent and the target indicator only shows up when I'm really close.

Obviously I'm not doing it right - can anyone post some useful newbie help as I'm otherwise enjoying the game a lot (had to install the DLC pack to get 1920*1080 on my monitor, default was 640*something, just how old is this game!)
 
If you chose a class other than soldier you will probably find that you cant hit a barn door with anything other than a pistol. You will have to use your biotic/tech powers instead.

I never used the squad commands in ME1, I just found them too clunky.
 
@ Taziir:

The screen resolution - I think that was a case of the arrow to change resolution being hard to see and you have to click it, but they are all there (its only 3 years old).

What class are you playing?
I'm guessing soldier or infiltrator because you mentioned sniper rifles. Honestly pistols with master marksman have been shown to have the highest dps, so very useful if youre infiltrator. If soldier just use whatever you like. Certainly recommend boosting immunity asap (god-mode), and assault training for soldier or electronics and decryption for infiltrator.

Combat armour - get at least to medium armour for infiltrator, or heavy armour for soldier. Shield boost is also useful.

Spectre training not really necessary above 4 (just to get unity), though some builds use up to 11 or 12.

Don't really need first aid on shepard (especially with immunity), so just boost a squad member's first aid a little.

Here are guides from the ME wiki:
Soldier
Infiltrator

Here's another thread on the official strategy forum to get you started:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/104/index/2375531

PC version has the benefit of separate commands to party members, so you can control them individually.
There's attack target, hold position, rally, move to location.
The HUD should be quite self explanatory - select weapon for squad, and powers to use.
If you want to use a power on a certain enemy target them while paused and click on the relevant power.
Unfortunetely you can only hotkey shepards powers, and for squad powers you need to pause. It's a mix of turn based and real time combat.
It's useful at low levels to set squad power usage as disabled or defensive, so you can have control over what they do. Once your shepard is beefed up enough to go solo, you can set squad power usage to active for less micromanagement.

Maxing sniper rifle talent is important for steadying the scope, and for assassination.

I can't recall having experienced a lot of problems with targeting (but I haven't played in a while), though you should be able to hit anything with a sniper rifle if you're shot is in the right direction, whether the target indicator is there or not.

And finally the squad is a little stupid (shooting through walls and shepard), not much can really be done about that.
 
Q and E were really the only useful squad controls to use in combat, so long as you've set squad power usage to auto.

That lets you place them where they need to be, hopefully behind some cover. They'll automatically fall back into your group after the fight.
 
Thanks for the advice, I'm still at work on a dead new yeays eve and need some light reading ;)

The resolution comment was my just being glib (and yes I didn't see the scoller), the animation on the models to too nice to call the game old hehe.
 
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