Prime example of lame RP choice (mild spoiler).

Uhm. OP where were you during ME2???

But it does matter. It matter in your charater building, it matters for roleplaying. A Shepard that says "It's good to have an AI or board" is very different than one that says "shut that thing off!". 

Sure, when it comes to plot development, it doesn't matter. EDI will still to the same things and so on. But it matters for the player, and I cannot overstate how important that is. So I'd say that people who are saying Andromeda = ME2 in this matter are missing the point entirely and are making a wrong assessment. 

I find the ability to have a logical character who responds emotionally to my LI very immersive. Or a character who is casual with her team but can be a professional diplomat. People aren't one thing in real life, we adapt to the situation we are in, and I love to have a game that allows you not to be limited by Good/Bad/Neutral. I find it the polar opposite of OOC. 

I also love how I make choices in the game, but they are almost always separate from the personality of Ryder. Save Sloan or don't, doesn't matter if you are logical or emotional, you can make the choice how you want to either way.

Shep had just as much RP limitation as Ryder, but she has 3 games worth of consequences in our memories. ME1 had almost zero consequences to things we said and did, it wasn't till 2 and 3 that Shep's choices had an impact on the universe. MEA is doing the same thing.

Shep will always be my girl, but I have room for Ryder too.

It is funny, I have been saying this for years (Nascimento knows this from the original BSN)

Within HOURS of his awakening Shepard is back at the citadel and within minutes of that he can be reinstated as a spectre with full blessing from the council and the alliance (admiral Hackett who flat out stonewalls attempts from alliance military to interfere with Shepard)....so why exactly would Shepard not throw Miranda and Jacob and the rest of the crew in jail and proceed to recruit the rest of the suicide squad under the authority of the council? Not to mention...torturing Miranda would have given us the location of TIM and likely allowed us to catch him during the events of ME2

But noooooo so much fucking better to backtrack and pretend Cerberus is something other than a terrorist organization with the competence level of a comic book villain

This is an interesting approach to the iventory. So basicaly, whatever you pick up is "beamed" right to the cargo bay of the tempest, even salvage that is only "sell stuff"? Going with that... inventory space is only limited to equippable items like weapons/armor/mods... are you telling me there is just room for 100 on the tempest? Well, 100 carnifex and the inv is full and they would not even fill half the kitchen. And you also bring up something interesting, we have to wake up colonists in order to have one consumable slot more, yay . If the inentory is the inventory of the tempest, we clearly need more "slots" (though do not know for what, 50 were enough, 100 are more then enough) and if it is your personal inventory, all the stuff you take should be counted (you have 30 shield capacitors on you? ok, but that is 30/100 slots taken). The ressources are... leave them be, we just dont know how they are measure... we cant store 5000t iron on the Tempest, on the other hand 5000g is like nothing... but I do not get the ressources. We find a large deposit of iron on a planet surface (planet scanning) but get only 80, on the other hand, it takes 100 to craft an armor... so, we picked 80t from the planet and used just 100kg for crafting? I do not know, it is so confusing. I would not remove the inventory, but I would not miss it if it were gone. Right now, if the inventory represents room on the Tempest, 100 is not enough, if it represpets your personal inventory, 100 is enough and everything should count (salvage too), but then we would have to go to a merchant every 10 minutes, since that is how the random encounters were designed (poor design), if a scenera (area) is loaded, mobs are back... clear a spot, drive away, return, mobs back. Yay.

Crafting done RIGHt gives a customization element. And yah, I would not srap it, but it needs a LOT of work.

Well... does MEA economy feel alive? I don't think so. There are merchants around, yup. They have stuff to sell, yup. But nothing I realy need. Occasionaly they got a mod I did not loot somewhere. Occasionaly there are some augmentations I could use (like Extended Modslot +2, or kinetic, or newtonian). I actualy never bought materials. Grey market cryo gives us access to "special inventories" but so far I have found nothing... the black market guy on Kadara is a joke, no different then the guy in Port itself or at the Nexus. And I do not know if buying Nomad paints make the economy more alive. Now... if out outposts would be attacked and we would have to equip our "colonists"... that would make sense for some of the merchants, as we can not craft everything. Well. The hubs are more "alive" with merchants around, but their "relevance" to the game is questionable.

We could upgrade our weapons from I-X in ME3, here we have to do it manualy. Research first, craft later. Basic items are already researched. I actualy can not remember how we aquired gear in ME2 since in a New Game+ had actualy all weapons available. And ME3 had all weapons available as well. It does not matter whether we aquire new stuff by loot, merchant or crafting, without a purpose beside limination, there is no need for an inventory. I scrap anything anyway and if everything is stored on the Tempest and I can carry as many consumables with me as I please, then there is no need for an inventory.

Is there a problem with the scanner I missed? I have a problem with SAM being everything, not the scanner and scanning. I actualy do not think a player needs the scanner to see a conduit/powerline below the surface to follow from a door to the right console, but I do not mind either if it is there.

So teasing and joking aside.

Inventory need work.
Crafting need work.
Merchants need a bigger purpose then just being there.
And on the scanning thing, I think you mix me up with someone else .

Rubbish. I'm on to my 6th Shepard and they're all different within the game. Yeah, the story plays out the same way with minor (and not so minor) differences, but my Shepards span an emotional and intellectual range from thug to thinker, all catered for in game.

If you're referring to Shepard's initial reaction to EDI - the outcome was identical. EDI's participation remained the same.



Well, it was in tune with the Shepard BioWare wrote. It was the first time I really recognized that Shepard wasn't going to be entirely under my control, and I needed to accept that fact.



I was not at all happy when I learned that the PC in this game would have an AI implant - or a family, or be 22 years old, for that matter. Part of my process in deciding to purchase the game was choosing to accept that this was the PC I would be playing. Ryder accepted the SAM implant as part of the decision to join the Pathfinder Team - so I guess to me, that's all water under the bridge.



Have you perchance gotten to the end of the game?

I would agree that SAM is a lot more intrusive than I would have liked - but I think that calling SAM the protagonist is going too far. Ryder is the one who interacts with other characters, decides where to go/what to do at any given point, and makes all of the decisions to be made.



In general, I'd agree.

However, I view Ryder as someone who'd accepted SAM as a partner in Pathfinding when s/he decided to join the team. S/he should have worked out any issues she had with it prior to having the implant surgery and leaving TMW.

Although you were limited in what you can express about SAM, I've noticed other areas where Ryder has multiple opportunities to express an opinion about a topic. I've come across multiple opportunities to talk about faith/beliefs/religion - one with Suvi, one with Vederia, one with one of the angaran sages (I think?), plus there was the stuff with angaran reincarnation.

Regarding the crafting vs purchasing



WTF is up with augmentations???

Why can't I craft more than one per type? If I am not allowed to craft them where can I buy the ultra rare ones??

Once you research them, you can start looting them, and in some cases, you can purchase them from vendors.  My first run, I wound up with like 6 Shield Oscillators (or whatever the ones are called that you have to research, that gives +25% shields per kill) and 3 Vintage Heat sinks.  They're out there.  Just need to, yanno, look.

Choosing military vs science for Prodromos doesn't alter a whole helluva lot, but there are definite differences in game.  When speaking to the Angaran ambassador on the Nexus for the first time, if you chose Science, he's more willing to trust the Initiative races, and has his guards give up their guns.  If you chose military, he won't give up the guns, but he'll restrict armed Angarans to guarding his ship, away from the rest of the populace.

Choosing Military gives you more people in the final battle in Meridian, and Jaal has a few different lines depending on your choice.  

These are the things I can think of off the top of my head, there may be others, but if so they're minor even compared to the above.

It's not a huge difference, but there is one, and it's enough of one that I can appreciate there being one.

Interesting, since I was perfectly able to persuade the Angaran to give up their guns when choosing military.