Take your time or Finish the Main Story?

It actually makes more sense to wait to get 100% viability on all planets until after you've finished the main story (dialogue during the mission triggered by cluster-wide 100% viability contains a spoiler for the main story). I wish that I hadn't worried so much about doing all of the sidequests before finishing the main storyline (especially since the quest I assumed would take me to endgame turned out to be only about 2/3 of the way through the story). The game lets you know when you're about to start the final story mission, and, as a general rule, as long as you've finished the story arc for each planet and the crew loyalty missions, you'll still be able to complete everything else later.

It's okay if you want to get to 100% viability on all planets early; it's just that the game doesn't expect you to, and there's no need to make a point of doing it, either, unless you're pushing for a specific cryo pod perk. And if you want to avoid the spoiler, just don't do the mission that it triggers until after you're done with the main story.

I hope they patch this. Mission should be exclusively post-ending (aka 'On Hold' until then).


To OP: Priority Ops, Allies and Relationships, and probably Helius Assignment should be done before ending, the latter being the more optional. Getting all planets to 100% viability isn't necessary but feels good for the journey. Getting all planet missions complete is even more optional. General Task completionism is utterly up to you.

But at least do the major storylines, and of course this means loyalty missions.

That said, maybe I'll switch it up in future playthroughs if I do them.

Take your time but save a lot of tasks for the post-game. There's a couple of conversations across all hubs in the game after the story ends that update based on what happens in the ending.

You can do loyalty missions after completing the main story. I was able to do Vetra's afterword.

What was the spoiler? I did that mission before finishing the main story and I didn't notice any spoiler.

It really depends on you, it's an open world game after all.
I managed to pace myself which is great because I'm usually impatient and not good with open world games. I have 96% completed (kinda annoying) and 100% viability which is definitely nice. I didn't do a lot of tasks (got 2 more damn minerals to scan eh) and didn't defeat all the architects, screw that.
But yeah if you have time and want to pace yourself it's definitely worth it. Doing things after the ending is anticlimactic at least for me, but the game does encourage it nicely in a way.

Let's cut to the chase. If it was known loyalty affects the final mission, most everyone here would secure it. Playing the meta game, therefore, can be controversial.

For me, I did the most important side missions (loyalty/allies) and secured all arks and earned 100% viability on available planets before moving on to the next priority mission and the next set of planets. The risk is loss of pace and focus on the Kett, but I didn't feel like I missed a thing. I thought it was more realistic, and the urgency wasn't there.

Better to build up your forces once you've got your foothold rather than hurtling recklessly to a final fight you shouldn't be able to breeze through without superior backup from extensive gameplay and choices. But again, it can be done if you wish to play the meta game and not get wrecked as realistically you should.

Are you referring to the quest where you go to the Kett ship where the Salarian ark is being held? I've been holding off doing this because it feels like a mission that precipitates the end of the main storyline but maybe this assumption was incorrect