Junior Adventurer's Guild: January - Mass Effect

[J1M]

Nominations I saw skimming the thread real quick

@Bertram_Tung
@BobT
Finarfin - Mass Effect 2
@J1M
Kolgrim - Darksiders 2
logincrash - Golf Story
@Maledict
@Stanko
@stormvermin
Tangerine - Ogre Battle 64
TKVNC - Morrowind
Tweed - Realms of Antiquity: The Shattered Crown
Valter - Mass Effect 2
@wndrbr

+ anyone who finishes today @TheEmptyRoad @Reichspepe

I nominated Final Fantasy XII.

[TheEmptyRoad]

Badge plz @Oyster Sauce. I nominate Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords - for the 3rd time (It'll happen one of these days!)



Here's some screenshots:


Background convos like the phone calls this guy has on Noveria add so much depth to what's going on in the background. Wish games did this more often instead shoving exposition directly in your face all the time. You have to actually stop and listen to this guy.



I think I've said it before here in the Mass Effect thread but Noveria is my favorite part of ME1. Not just the corporate skullduggery in Port Hanshan but this descent into horror, if you have some spare time and don't mind modding, somebody has reconstructed the original Hot Labs, it's very creepy. https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1708



Stuff like this is why I like the Diversification Project mod. The 'diversity' it adds is mainly stuff like this. Dead bodies, populating hub areas like on Noveria, the Presidium and the Wards.





Populating with more aliens for the most part and adding variety to said aliens; like female Turians, multiple looks for Volus and Elcor, and adding Drell.



Hrmmm, what an interesting logo design. Bet we won't see anything similar in the future games.



Mods


If this idiot had any brains at all, he would've kept his trap shut until an opportunity presented itself to grab the data inside, probably by where the Krogan Scientist Guy was. But no, he points a gun in a Spectre's face in full view of everybody DEMANDING we save the cure - in front of Salarian Special Forces. MORON.



HOLD THE LINE.



This ******* *****.



*******. PEAK. Cannot overstate how awesome this reveal was at age 18. **** I'm getting old.



And this is why fraternization in the military is frowned upon.



Hehehe, fraternization.



Man, I still get chills every time. Talking to Vigil is always kino.



Oh lawd he comin'



Where're those tentacles goin'?



The only real option. Top is naive and foolish, bottom is just petty. Focused on the mission is the only way.



Oh nooooooo...




Heh, get rekt scrub



Played as a Humanity-First for I think the second total time, and the first time I didn't feel the least bit bad about it. Helped get my old gangoon buddy off the hook, got that negotiator guy his stims for negotiations with the Salarians, and endorsed Charles Saracino.

[Tweed]

Mods

NO! BAD!!

[Magick]

I remember being fully immersed when I first stepped foot onto the Citadel. It was like being in an episode of Star Trek, all those different races, billions of codex entries etc. It really set up the universe.

[rusty_shackleford]

They could have made an entire buddy cop game set on the citadel
What a squandered setting

[TheEmptyRoad]

Mods

NO! BAD!!

Tinted Window-Visors make no sense! It's always bothered me!

[J1M]

Mods

NO! BAD!!

Tinted Window-Visors make no sense! It's always bothered me!

They are gypsies. Why would they want to show their faces when they are stealing things?

[Magick]

Mods

NO! BAD!!

Tinted Window-Visors make no sense! It's always bothered me!

Maybe they wanted to appear different to other races.
Also cool! Though I'd reduce the transparency slightly.. What mod? Also any way to mod out that nose thing? Looks too WH40k lol.

And the lazy motherfuckers did this to her.

[Magick]

NO! BAD!!

Tinted Window-Visors make no sense! It's always bothered me!

They are gypsies. Why would they want to show their faces when they are stealing things?

I was going to say, behead all those who insult Tali...
But then I remembered hearing she admits they were actually stealing tech.

[rusty_shackleford]

Behead xeno lovers

[Reichspepe]

Nominations I saw skimming the thread real quick

@Bertram_Tung
@BobT
Finarfin - Mass Effect 2
J1M - FF XII
Kolgrim - Darksiders 2
logincrash - Golf Story
Maledict - ******* Bonds
@Stanko
@stormvermin
Tangerine - Ogre Battle 64
TheEmptyRoad - KOTOR II
TKVNC - Morrowind
Tweed - Realms of Antiquity: The Shattered Crown
Valter - Mass Effect 2
@wndrbr

+ anyone who finishes today @Reichspepe

Some unexpected relatively serious health problems popped up in the last days, sadly I won't be able to finish it for the near future

[Stanko]

Got drunk (on fresh air) after my evening walk and decided to start a parallel run on the r*master version playing as a girl. My custom Femsheps turn out to be either jewish or ugly, so I'm going with this Witch.

Remaster has some nice mods, so there's that, at least. But the lightning is atrocious anyway, even with MELLO. Good thing my eyesight is just as bad, so I can play two feet away from my monitor and not see any of it. Now, I'll just walk around the Citadel for 20 hours, since "Becoming A Spectre" is the best part of the game. I trust you will vote ME2 Two Worlds II in by the time I complete this run.

[logincrash]

the hypocrisy.jpg

What terrifies me is if Batarians were to smash an asteroid into Terra Nova and kill 4,5 million Humans.
Imagine the backlash against peaceful Batarians?

[Valter]

Got drunk (on fresh air) after my evening walk and decided to start a parallel run on the r*master version playing as a girl. My custom Femsheps turn out to be either jewish or ugly, so I'm going with this Witch.

Remaster has some nice mods, so there's that, at least. But the lightning is atrocious anyway, even with MELLO. Good thing my eyesight is just as bad, so I can play two feet away from my monitor and not see any of it. Now, I'll just walk around the Citadel for 20 hours, since "Becoming A Spectre" is the best part of the game. I trust you will vote ME2 Two Worlds II in by the time I complete this run.

The Mass Effect character creator is wild

[Magick]

What terrifies me is if Batarians were to smash an asteroid into Terra Nova and kill 4,5 million Humans.
Imagine the backlash against peaceful Batarians?

I remember the Batarians being portrayed as pretty unredeemable.
Which was funny considering they showed that even the ****** Krogans and a literal bug Rachni queen, could be.

Did that change at all in the 3rd one or later? Was there ever a "good" Batarian?

[Stanko]

What terrifies me is if Batarians were to smash an asteroid into Terra Nova and kill 4,5 million Humans.
Imagine the backlash against peaceful Batarians?

"Did Batarians cause First Contact War? No
Did Batarians cause Rachni wars? No
Did Batarians cause Genophage? No
**** off with your Batarianphobia"

[Tangerine]

Got drunk (on fresh air) after my evening walk and decided to start a parallel run on the r*master version playing as a girl. My custom Femsheps turn out to be either jewish or ugly, so I'm going with this Witch.

Remaster has some nice mods, so there's that, at least. But the lightning is atrocious anyway, even with MELLO. Good thing my eyesight is just as bad, so I can play two feet away from my monitor and not see any of it. Now, I'll just walk around the Citadel for 20 hours, since "Becoming A Spectre" is the best part of the game. I trust you will vote ME2 Two Worlds II in by the time I complete this run.

Mods? Mods!? Please ban this cretin for playing as foidShep.

[TKVNC]

Got drunk (on fresh air) after my evening walk and decided to start a parallel run on the r*master version playing as a girl. My custom Femsheps turn out to be either jewish or ugly, so I'm going with this Witch.

Remaster has some nice mods, so there's that, at least. But the lightning is atrocious anyway, even with MELLO. Good thing my eyesight is just as bad, so I can play two feet away from my monitor and not see any of it. Now, I'll just walk around the Citadel for 20 hours, since "Becoming A Spectre" is the best part of the game. I trust you will vote ME2 Two Worlds II in by the time I complete this run.

Even if it's Morrigan...

Why are you playing as a woman?

[Stanko]

Got drunk (on fresh air) after my evening walk and decided to start a parallel run on the r*master version playing as a girl. My custom Femsheps turn out to be either jewish or ugly, so I'm going with this Witch.

Remaster has some nice mods, so there's that, at least. But the lightning is atrocious anyway, even with MELLO. Good thing my eyesight is just as bad, so I can play two feet away from my monitor and not see any of it. Now, I'll just walk around the Citadel for 20 hours, since "Becoming A Spectre" is the best part of the game. I trust you will vote ME2 Two Worlds II in by the time I complete this run.

Even if it's Morrigan...

Why are you playing as a woman?

I am not authorized to read the "women hating" thread, and therefore am not hating them enough to not play as one. Need to post more.

[logincrash]

There sure are some kewl shots in this game.

CINEMA.jpg

Love the droplets of water flying off the Mako. A tiny detail that adds so much.

dripping wet.jpg

They look so much better in motion too.

[logincrash]

mountains of crycore.jpg

[logincrash]

Finished my "full immersion roleplay focused" playthrough. Played for 35 and a half hours. Very cool. Mass Effect 1 still holds up.

full immerstion playthrough.jpg

I've installed some QoL mods (faster Mako, marked points of interest, reaching level 60 in a single playthrough) because I've done both a "speedrun" and a "boring 100% completionist" playthroughs on vanilla Mass Effect.
But I could see how it's possible to get another 5-10 hours without those mods if you do every quest and scour every planet searching for the different anomalies on the map. And then double that time with a second playthrough to reach level 60. That would easily make for 75-80 hours total.
It wasn't a full 100% completionist playthrough because I refused to do some quests I thought my Shepard wouldn't do. Most likely missed some codex entries too, since I told Garrus to pound sand.

► 4 screenshots

Endorsed the Terra Firma party.

wignats.jpg

Turns out you can talk Alenko into going from a "There's Nuance" Centrist **** to a "Humanity First" Chad.

based alenko.jpg

This is what roleplaying does to a ************. Half the party missing because my Shepard's a racist who dislikes Turians and puts down uppity Krogans.

what roleplaying does to a mfr.jpg

Ashley's with God now that she's atoned for her grandfather's cowardice.
Never done this quest after killing Wrex. The description is pretty brutal.

brutal.jpg

I have over 30 more screenshots that I've collected over the course of this playthrough. I'm gonna post them occasionally when the mood strikes me and I get off my *** to sort them all.

---

Some random ending stretch thoughts:

► Show Spoiler

Ilos is really cool if you stop and look around. The entire runup to the Conduit and the Vigil convo are amazing.
The Citadel spacewalk is probably the most kino part of the entire game.
Fighting Saren both times is more satisfying. Letting him kill himself is implying that that ******* scumbag redeemed himself in the end. He doesn't deserve that. He deserves to die in horrific pain gurgling glass and blood.
The Turian Councilor has been such an insufferable ****** the entire game that I deliberately chose to let the Council die instead of going with my usual "Concentrate on the Sovereign" choice.

And, of course, M4, Pt. 2 still rocks.

---

LMAO

[DrSneed]

@logincrash needs an N21 badge.

I doubt I'm alone in my love of Mass Effect. Finarfin, TheEmptyRoad, and Bertram_Tung would be in the same club.
Although, their love might be less pure, considering that they can stomach the ****** remaster.

I've beaten Mass Effect at least 13 times. Most of them were autistic completionist runs.

[logincrash]

@logincrash needs an N21 badge.

I doubt I'm alone in my love of Mass Effect. Finarfin, TheEmptyRoad, and Bertram_Tung would be in the same club.
Although, their love might be less pure, considering that they can stomach the ****** remaster.

I've beaten Mass Effect at least 13 times. Most of them were autistic completionist runs.

I've lost count of how many times I've done the full trilogy 100% run. My conservative estimate is about 8, not including the playthroughs I've done this month.

[J1M]

@logincrash needs an N21 badge.

I doubt I'm alone in my love of Mass Effect. Finarfin, TheEmptyRoad, and Bertram_Tung would be in the same club.
Although, their love might be less pure, considering that they can stomach the ****** remaster.

I've beaten Mass Effect at least 13 times. Most of them were autistic completionist runs.

Mass Effect 2 is currently tied for the lead to be chosen next month: viewtopic.php?t=5196-junior-adventurer- ... -poll-open

[Magick]

It's "only" an in-game moment, but awe inspiring everytime.

It's more interesting if you read the codex. Ships this large are classified as dreadnaughts and they are physically incapable of landing on planets.
Ships work off of mass effect cores that use element zero (eezo) to lower the mass of an object, which allows regular engines using regular fuel to move it out of the atmosphere. But if you have too much mass, you need more eezo and a bigger mass effect core. But bigger mass effect cores require more electricity and output more heat and static charge (which, if not dissipated through radiating and grounding, will rebound and flash cook everything alive and fuse all the metal together).So the bigger mass effect cores can only run for short amounts of time before they need to cooldown. It's not that big of a problem in deep space at absolute zero, but just being in a star system is enough to noticeably lower the possible operating time.
Everybody has to build dreadnaughts in space and they can never land on planets (this leads to cool starship designs where all the decks are "sideways" with the upper deck being at the nose of the ship and the lower decks at the engines).
Sovereign is at least two (most likely more) times larger than the biggest dreadnaught of all of the known species. And, since it can land onto Eden Prime without blowing the **** up, that means it has the biggest mass effect core in the galaxy (at the time of ME1).

Yup. Also the reason the ship in ME2 sends you down in a shuttle each time, since it's bigger.

I just remembered, this was only partially true. Normandy Mk2 was a Cruiser class. It is indeed Dreadnaughts that can't land AT ALL. Presumably Cruisers can, but need some sort of docking area.
Whereas Normandy Mk1 the Frigate can do whatever it wants.

Regardless I miss the airlock, it was immersive.
I "get" that hiding loading screens like this is annoying when they stick 13 "squeeze through small gap between rocks" in a row, in other games, but at least with Mass Effect etc. an elevator or airlock fits in. Much more immersive than a "game" loading screen being slapped up every so often.


In other notes, was the Destiny Ascension (The Asari's so called super dreadnaught) ever shown to actually....DO anything?
It was really hyped up in the codex and conversations with it's massive ship-long cannon blabla, and yet in the final battle it just...sat there, and needed rescuing, and even then still didn't DO anything lol.
I know that was partially due to Harbinger's interventions, but still.. I expected to be shown something to back up the hype.

[J1M]

It's more interesting if you read the codex. Ships this large are classified as dreadnaughts and they are physically incapable of landing on planets.
Ships work off of mass effect cores that use element zero (eezo) to lower the mass of an object, which allows regular engines using regular fuel to move it out of the atmosphere. But if you have too much mass, you need more eezo and a bigger mass effect core. But bigger mass effect cores require more electricity and output more heat and static charge (which, if not dissipated through radiating and grounding, will rebound and flash cook everything alive and fuse all the metal together).So the bigger mass effect cores can only run for short amounts of time before they need to cooldown. It's not that big of a problem in deep space at absolute zero, but just being in a star system is enough to noticeably lower the possible operating time.
Everybody has to build dreadnaughts in space and they can never land on planets (this leads to cool starship designs where all the decks are "sideways" with the upper deck being at the nose of the ship and the lower decks at the engines).
Sovereign is at least two (most likely more) times larger than the biggest dreadnaught of all of the known species. And, since it can land onto Eden Prime without blowing the **** up, that means it has the biggest mass effect core in the galaxy (at the time of ME1).

Yup. Also the reason the ship in ME2 sends you down in a shuttle each time, since it's bigger.

I just remembered, this was only partially true. Normandy Mk2 was a Cruiser class. It is indeed Dreadnaughts that can't land AT ALL. Presumably Cruisers can, but need some sort of docking area.
Whereas Normandy Mk1 the Frigate can do whatever it wants.

Regardless I miss the airlock, it was immersive.
I "get" that hiding loading screens like this is annoying when they stick 13 "squeeze through small gap between rocks" in a row, in other games, but at least with Mass Effect etc. an elevator or airlock fits in. Much more immersive than a "game" loading screen being slapped up every so often.


In other notes, was the Destiny Ascension (The Asari's so called super dreadnaught) ever shown to actually....DO anything?
It was really hyped up in the codex and conversations with it's massive ship-long cannon blabla, and yet in the final battle it just...sat there, and needed rescuing, and even then still didn't DO anything lol.
I know that was partially due to Harbinger's interventions, but still.. I expected to be shown something to back up the hype.

See: earlier discussions of Asari commandos.

[Oyster Sauce]

It's more interesting if you read the codex. Ships this large are classified as dreadnaughts and they are physically incapable of landing on planets.
Ships work off of mass effect cores that use element zero (eezo) to lower the mass of an object, which allows regular engines using regular fuel to move it out of the atmosphere. But if you have too much mass, you need more eezo and a bigger mass effect core. But bigger mass effect cores require more electricity and output more heat and static charge (which, if not dissipated through radiating and grounding, will rebound and flash cook everything alive and fuse all the metal together).So the bigger mass effect cores can only run for short amounts of time before they need to cooldown. It's not that big of a problem in deep space at absolute zero, but just being in a star system is enough to noticeably lower the possible operating time.
Everybody has to build dreadnaughts in space and they can never land on planets (this leads to cool starship designs where all the decks are "sideways" with the upper deck being at the nose of the ship and the lower decks at the engines).
Sovereign is at least two (most likely more) times larger than the biggest dreadnaught of all of the known species. And, since it can land onto Eden Prime without blowing the **** up, that means it has the biggest mass effect core in the galaxy (at the time of ME1).

Yup. Also the reason the ship in ME2 sends you down in a shuttle each time, since it's bigger.

I just remembered, this was only partially true. Normandy Mk2 was a Cruiser class. It is indeed Dreadnaughts that can't land AT ALL. Presumably Cruisers can, but need some sort of docking area.
Whereas Normandy Mk1 the Frigate can do whatever it wants.

Regardless I miss the airlock, it was immersive.
I "get" that hiding loading screens like this is annoying when they stick 13 "squeeze through small gap between rocks" in a row, in other games, but at least with Mass Effect etc. an elevator or airlock fits in. Much more immersive than a "game" loading screen being slapped up every so often.


In other notes, was the Destiny Ascension (The Asari's so called super dreadnaught) ever shown to actually....DO anything?
It was really hyped up in the codex and conversations with it's massive ship-long cannon blabla, and yet in the final battle it just...sat there, and needed rescuing, and even then still didn't DO anything lol.
I know that was partially due to Harbinger's interventions, but still.. I expected to be shown something to back up the hype.

I looked up the warscore ramifications for ME3 and you actually lose a significant amount of points for choosing to save the Destiny Ascension vs letting it be destroyed lmao. Always just assumed it would give you more.

► Show Spoiler

If you save the Council, the following happens;

You get the Destiny Ascension with a score of 70. Three Alliance fleets suffer as a result, meaning -75 Assets. Furthermore, not saving the council gives you an additional 25 for Admiral Mikhailovich.

That being said, if you save the Council AND save the Salarian Councillor from Kai Leng, you receive an additional 125 War Assets. If you don't save the Council but save the new Councillor from Kai Leng, you get +70 War Assets.

Thus, by saving the Council you get 120 total war assets (70-75+125). By not saving the council, you get 170 (25+25+25+25+70).

Tl;dr let the Council die if you want the most possible War Assets

Edit: Completing a sidequest (Heating Unit Stabilizers) nets +8 for the fleet received for saving the Council. Thus the final tally would be 128 to 170. The result is the same though.

[Valter]

Feel like I just saw something I shouldn't have

[logincrash]

Feel like I just saw something I shouldn't have

Check out Xavier: Renegade Angel.