Honestly, should Andromeda been a bit more alien?

If you don't leave the planet after resetting the vault, but instead take on a number of different quests in Podromos, you can find yourself fighting the radiation a lot to complete those quests... so the duration you spend in that "alien" circumstance is somewhat within the control of the player.  To me the term "more alien" is really somewhat abiguous.  I don't think we all have the same baseline thought as to what exactly would make Andromeda "more alien" even though it's something the fan base throws up at the developer every single day.

IMO, they had a much more meaningful variety to the planets than meets the eye.  I can see this story in the sequel being, in part, about the long-term effects of the terraforming that goes on... the idea that something of value is lost when environments are changed.  I can see rising sea levels from melting ice being an issue on Havarl.  I can see the extinction of those innocuous "red paint" plants on Elaaden being a problem.  The Abyssal on Elaaden also serves some sort of environmental purpose, the yevara the same, as well as the mantas on Havarl... and that purpose is still "alien" and unknown.  The purpose of the structures beyond the walls on Havarl is still "alien" and unknown.  The scourge itself is still "alien" and unknown.  We were given enough to sense connections yet these elements remain, for now, out of our immediate understanding... alien in a deeper sense than just "oh cool, different to look at."

I was talking about the visual appearance of the planet - I thought were talking about the yellow tinge to the atmosphere pre-Vault activation (you mentioned this was from the 'heat hazes' on Elaaden, which is also a visual thing). That effect only persists for as long as it takes to get to the Vault.

So basically the opposite of what Ryder does.

They need a scientist to map the planet and discover water, minerals and all that is required for life and technology and not someone to kill everything that stands in the way.

Wipe. Out. Local. Threats.

Just read the codex dude. The idea is for a small team to rapidly recon the area, assess it, take readings and signal for all-clear using a fraction of the time and manpower it would normally take, as the AI connected to the Pathfinder's can do all the stuff a science team would do, but rapidly and without the need for a basecamp and lots of kit.

The idea science team would somehow fight hostile animals and any ET combat forces while carrying out manual soil analyses etc is just being silly. I don't for one minute think you're actually having a problem with understanding the  concept.

I would have liked more new aliens.... provided we had left all the Milky Way aliens in the Milky Way and the intitiative would have been purely human. I think there is such a thing as too many aliens.

How many of these threads do we need in just a couple of days?

bsn.boards.net/thread/12358/honestly-andromeda-bit-more-alien

This is common in CRPGs where the PC has any identity besides simply being a skilled combatant, isn't it? DAI has the issue also (though it's not a big problem because the Inquisitor doesn't achieve her position as a result of any rational process, so the split between who the Inquisitor really is and who the Inquisitor is supposed to be is an in-universe thing.) DA:O and DA2 don't have the issue at all because being a Grey Warden or the Champion of Kirkwall is fundamentally about combat prowess. The later Ultimas have the problem because you're playing the Avatar, but you mostly just kill stuff.

The Inquisitor kind of grows into the role. If the others accepted them to be their leader before reaching Skyhold, it can just as well being made official. The only question is, why do the others accept their leadership, but that's down to the magic hand. In DAII Hawke kind of grows into the role also. For me it's on the same lines as ME2, since it's more about a personal journey than some big story arc.

I'm with abaris. "More alien" and "more aliens" seem close enough to not need a new thread.

But, I'll respond anyway. Because, ya know, I'm an asshole like that.

Lore-wise I feel that the amount of new aliens is consistent with what we've seen before. Helius aliens don't have Reaper Mass Relay technology, and therefore haven't spread much beyond their clusters. In the OT, one or two species per cluster seems to be normal, so the amount we get seems fine.

I agree some additional species would have been nice. I kind of thought there might be 3-4 new species, all with certain positive and negative attributes and then we would have to work to align ourselves with one or two of them, which would make "enemies" of the other two, and those decisions would have repercussions. So personally, yeah a few more alien species would have been nice, but it would have been inconsistent with the lore, so people would have been upset either way.

How many aliens should be in a single cluster? How many alien races rose up in a SINGLE CLUSTER in the original trilogy?

Well, Kett could travel there, so it was possible to reach from other clusters.  Also, Angarans were placed there to populate it, they weren't native to it, so were there no races native to this cluster?  Perhaps remnants of a race that was there before they were wiped out to make room for the Angarans.  There were any number of ways they could have gone with a little more imagination or risk.

Non humanoid races, that were intelligent, but didn't build cities, anything.

For fuck's sake it's ONE goddamned cluster. ONE. The only cluster in the MW to have more than one sentient species is the one in which the elcor and asari reside. How do people not get this?