ME 1 Newb questions

Thanks for the info.  I'm on Feros now and started it with zero grenades.  I hope when they give that knockout grenade upgrade, they actually give a bunch of them.  Otherwise, the colony will be massacred.

How many of the companions carry over to the next game for anything more than cameos in the follow-up games? 

Thanks.  So much for maintaining romances from game to game! 

1. Grenades are sometimes in crates that you can open or unlock. Grenade pickups can be rare in ME1. I find that it is only really annoying on Feros, when it is the only time where they are actually very useful. (They are also somewhat useful on Nodacrux -- unlocked after completing the main mission on Feros -- since there are Thorian Creeperss there.)

If you have Pinnacle Station DLC and beat all the missions, you can get access to a box that will replenish all your grenades at any time. If i recall, there is also a place on Asteroid X-57 (Bring Down the Sky DLC) where you can replenish your grenades as well; I think it is in one of the far corners of the map.

2. Shield Boost will restore some of your shields. It is best used when you lose all your shields and are taking fire. Your HUD (heads up display)/the interface on the screen should show you your health and shields. Your health is red. Your shields are indicated by blue lines.  When you have no more blue lines, your shields are gone. Basic/Advanced/Master Shield Boost determines how much shields it can restore. Master Shield Boost will restore +50% of your shields per second, for two seconds, meaning it can restore +100% of your shields after 2 seconds.

Barrier adds shields for a limited time. I think Master Barrier adds like +1000 shields or something? Bastion (Adept) and Shock Trooper (Vanguard) specializations have a bonus to Barrier that has a shield regeneration (+40 shields per second or something like that?) as long as Barrier is active. That is on top of the massive amount of shields Barrier can give you.

3. When using First Aid, the game adds all the First Aid bonuses from Shepard and your squadmates (including bonuses from passives and Omni Tools). First Aid will then replenish that much health to Shepard and squadmates. First Aid has a flat health increase (+50 or +100 I think); First Aid bonuses are then added on top of that. Basic First Aid (rank 1) adds +100 health when healing. 

Putting 1 point into Shepard's or squadmate First Aid is a general must-have, since it adds up rather quickly. (The one exception might be Ashley in New Game+.) First Aid has diminishing returns after rank 1. I would not put more than 1 point into it unless you need to put points into it to unlock another power, such as Medicine on Engineer Shepard or Kaidan.

Thanks for the explanation of how to read shield status on the HUD display in your previous post.  That's one of those things I missed with my "play first, ask questions later" approach to games.  If the game tutorial doesn't hit me over the head with something, I'll miss it in the codex.

For whatever reason, I've never noticed finding grenade caches, just the grenade upgrades.  Oh well...   Funny you should mention the second Exogeni lab; I just finished that before reading your post.  I always use the creepers and the husks as an excuse to go wild with the shotgun! 

For Vanguard, which would you choose?  Shock Trooper or Nemesis?  I chose nemesis because of the promise of stronger biotics, though I really haven't noticed any difference.