What did you do today in ME?

John Shepard:

- Joker picked up a distress call on Edolus. On investigation, I found a squad of dead marines and a living thresher maw - which I killed. The beacon was a lure to the maw nest. Someone is going to pay for that.
- On Therum I encountered a lot of geth. A LOT OF GETH. Killed 'em all. Inside of a heavily protected Prothean dig site (whose tiles reminded Kaidan of a bathroom floor) was Liara T'Soni, the daughter of Matriarch Benezia. She was trapped and had been attacked by Saren's forces. I freed her, dispatched them, and she joined us on the Normandy. One more alien for Ash and Pressly to pout over. And trust me, they do.
- Kaidan definitely flirted with me (thanks to rondeeno). I learned a lot about the asari. Wrex talked about a prior run-in with Saren. Ash told me how she's not really racist.

John Shepard:

- On Earth's moon, Luna, I had to put down a VI that was acting suspiciously aggressive. I wonder if the geth are behind it. Can it be a coincidence that this thing goes crazy right after they show up? In any case, I was changed as a result.
- Landed on Noveria. Hell of a welcome, even with my credentials. Benezia is here but Administrator Anoleis is playing hardball. I could shoot my way through but after destroying a Prothean ruin I'm trying not to completely piss off the people who gave me so much power. I made a deal with his secretary - an internal affairs investigator - that landed Anoleis in jail and got me the pass I needed. The garage was filled with geth that Benezia had smuggled in.

Cerberus has clearly gotten hold of dragon's teeth and made husks.  This isn't really in question.  I always wondered why people didn't see Cerberus for what they were going into ME2 because it's clear that are bad people.  Kaidan/Ashley's reaction alone is suggestive enough.

Okay, it was Chasca.  But what's the connection between Cerberus and the husks?  Did they provoke the Geth?  Or are they cooperating with them?

My Fem-Shep completed the Asteroid X57 DLC. After shutting down the torch engines that were moving the asteroid on a collision course with the Terra Nova colony, she opted to let the Batarian terrorist leader go in order to free the colonists working on the asteroid. She received as a gift, Colossus IX armor. (She was Level 49) Now on to Ilos!

John Shepard:

- Once I reached Peak 15 I encountered bugs, small and large, that attacked. Liara, Kaidan and I all couldn't identify them. Had to repair the place before I could proceed. Dr. Olar told me they're called Rachni, the aliens who had invaded Council spaces millennia ago and led to the krogan being uplifted by the salarians to fight them.
- A snarky asari scientist who had been "meditating" earlier (if that's how she is when meditating I'd hate to see her normally) attacked me when trying to formulate a cure for Rachni venom. She came with geth in tow. One of us walked out alive.
- Fought with Benezia and her forces but then she broke off the attack. She said Saren had indoctrinated her, that her thoughts weren't her own. She was briefly free but knew she'd fall back under his control. She suggested the Sovereign, the ship, might be connected. She attacked one more time and then, free finally, refused medical attention so she could die free. Before dying, she told us the location of the lost Mu Relay, which is what Saren had been seeking.
- Before leaving, the captured Rachni Queen spoke to me through a dying asari commando. She told me her children were corrupted which is why they were attacked. She was also only an egg during the Rachni Invasion so had nothing to do with it. I couldn't be responsible for genocide or blame her for the actions of others. I set her free. Then I initiated a neutron purge to destroy the hot labs and all the crazy Rachni.
- The Council wasn't pleased by my decision with the Rachni Queen but they ultimately accepted it.
- I think Ash has a thing for Kaidan. Competition.

From what I've experienced, the mod still leaves enough time for the conversations.

So it started. I am going to do six trilogy runs, each focused on each class (soldier, adept, engineer, sentinel, infiltrator, vanguard). I had this plan in stock for months and now that Andromeda proved to be a letdown (and I am going to wait for it to be patched) it seems like a good time to start.

I am going to start with the class I least liked in ME1 and 2 (but actually liked in ME3): Vanguard.

Meet Helena Shepard, a female redhead native of Earth with a troubled past that involved running around with street gangs, enlisting and being the sole survivor of a terrible ordeal.

The plan is to have her romance Liara over the whole trilogy. Kaidan will survive the Virmire mission with Ashley dying a little bit soon (after recruiting Liara and saving the Feros colony. Benezia will be the sub-boss prior to Saren in order to promote Liara in the story. I will collect the asari ancient texts in order to save the number one fan in the future. Bring down the sky will be completed (and it will be the only planet fully explored), but as far as my shepards are concerned, they have been hypnotized with the notion that a place called pinnacle station simply does not exist.

Aside from the material involving Kasumi and Zaed, the dlc content for ME2 will be done after the suicide mission. Arrival will be the penultimate mission, followed by the shadow broker chapters so that Liaras scene in the cabin will be the ending prior to collecting a few more updates (by visiting the brokers base on other dates) and reseting my powers.

Me3 will be played in the order that the missions become available. Javik will soon be recruited as he will be crucial because of his deep impact on Liara. The ME3 dlcs of Omega, Citadel and Leviathan will only be started after the virmire survivor is aboard and tali is stationed with Adams, Ken and Gabby.

As for the battles:

In ME1, Liara and Garrus will be the main companions. Save for some exceptional circumstances like handling husks, the strategy will be to have Garrus using snipers mostly, Liara with pistols and Helena with Shotguns. Helena will take the Nemesis route after the Moon mission. The bonus power will be singularity.

In ME2, Mordin and Kasumi will accompany Helena. Kasumi will be the first recruited, with Mordin following right after her. Incinerate/Neural shock and Kasumis bomb will help to cripple enemy lines so Helena can charge with relative safety and crush the enemies with her shotgun. Barrier will be the bonus power of choice.

In ME3 with so many opportunities for biotic explosions available, Liara will be a regular feature, paired with Javik. Reave as bonus power will complement the biotic arsenal.


Me1 will be hacked in the persuasion bar as well as gear and levels (I cant stand ME1 anymore by constantly raising characters by allocating points and altering gear), and also because the squad will be able to use powers more often. ME2 will have the reputation bar filled and mini-games hacked by a mod that auto-solves them in just a few seconds. ME3 will also have full reputation bar.

I am going to use this as a template of a worst case scenario. I tend to die a lot more with vanguards than any other class, specially in ME2. I usually play ME1 in a very intense manner, completing the game in about 3 days (one weekend) in less than 16 hours combined (around 5 hours per day). For some reason, whenever I play ME1, even when keeping close tabs on the progress with all the objectives on a personal file covering what needs to be done and in which order, I always have this strange urge to finish it as soon as possible. As for ME2 and ME3, I can easily spread each one of them over an entire week or even two weeks.

Lets see if I can do this planned collection of runs in less than 100 days, with each run lasting from 15 to 20 days. If memory servers, vanguard was the slowest (because I would die a lot in ME2 making me replay certain segments). Infiltrators and engineers took a little longer than the rest of the classes because using snipers I would try to line up the perfect shot from a distance, and while as engineer I would toy around with the enemy by using turrets and drones and advancing one step at the time while having fun. Biotic in ME2 was a little bit slow, but very fast in 3 thanks to the explosion system. Soldier and Sentinel were all consistently fast given their very aggressive posture, better defensive capabilities and damage.

Ive chosen Helena as a redhead for a reason. Her trilogy run will be very intense and explosive. I will attempt to complete it as fast as I can while doing all the missions (aside from pinnacle) and then using it as a template for the next five runs.

I had something similar happen to me.  I had Kaidan and Garrus with me on Therum.  We reached the first geth base with the canons in front of it.  I take the side path as suggested and stop after destroying that one canon.  I get out and head into the base on foot.  I realized at some point that Garrus wasn't with me.  He was hanging out behind the Mako.

Found a bunch of old ME1 saves and spent the session browsing them. No idea who some of those people are and am quite sure two or three are faces from the save file site. But recognized a few old fellows I'm glad to have back. Also realized why I was so confused about Luke's face, since neither of the ME2 saves I had were his proper face. So maybe he'll get a proper go. Also trying to decide if some of those other mooks should get a chance to finish their stories. But had a pretty good time pondering what I was thinking back then.
~ Edit. Also found out how to insert new characters into the main loading thing. Always thought you had to get rid of the profile, but when you click Switch Careers there is an All Careers button at the top and you can locate the save by name. So if anyone is as dense as me and also likes switching out saves, that's how you do it. And it's also really nice, since it locates all the saves with the same name after you load one save, so the next time you can just pick the Shepard as normal. 
So that was nice too. 

I decided to do a second ME1 PT, this time as a Vanguard. I installed both MEUITM and rondeeno's mod so that my Fem-Shep could romance Ashley. I also made the ill-fated mistake of upping the difficulty from normal to veteran. Ouch! I play the DA games on nightmare without problems. In ME on veteran, I'm getting annihilated!

So far, after the Eden Prime mission, I did some quests in the Citadel, then some space side quests (the pirates made me walk the plank a couple of times), and rescued Liara. So far, no real flirting with Ashley. (I hope that doesn't mean I botched the installation of the mod.)

I don't mind taking from Nasanna.  She's a terrible person but...well, you did play ME2, right?