^I'm sure they'll include some dialogue or email message to that'll keep the non-DLC owners in the loop. If nothing else, Bioware have proven to be adept (if not perfect) at weaving that kind of thing into the narrative. [edit] Still trying to figure out a play of action. So far I think all I need to do is make sure I upgrade the armour and weapons to keep Jack safe and take Tali with me to fight the thing in the cargo bay so someone else is killed when the shields fail. After that it's just a matter of intentionally picking the wrong people for the wrong jobs, while making sure neither Tali or Jack are direct at risk. Then it's just a matter of keeping them both with me for the final battle and hoping nobody makes it back from holding the line. I rekon I can get four people killed before the final battle, leaving six on the line. I suppose the trick is to get the combat oriented characters like Grunt, Garrus and Jacob killed early on, leaving the less capable ones to fend for themselves and die...damn that sound so cold.
^ Exactly. The comic in and of itself is canon in the more strict sense of the word, the default version of events is "quote-unquote canon" In the end, that's what makes the ME trilogy so great, we - the players - can shape huge portions of the "canon" the way we see fit.
I just played LotSB as Denise Shepard and she reunited with her one true love, Liara. I'm not quite sure what Liara sees in the evil and red-eyed Denise, but I'm not complaining. Oooh, a logical puzzle, I love those. Make sure Tali and Jack are loyal and upgrade the armour only. Bring Tali and Jack into the cargo bay to fight the Oculus: Kasumi and Thane die. Send Garrus through the vents, pick anyone else as the second team leader: Garrus dies. Send Grunt back with Dr Chakwas: Grunt dies. Select Miranda to create the biotic shield and bring Jacob on your team: You want Jacob to die. If the other member of your team dies, reload until Jacob is the one that snuffs it. Select Zaeed to head the second fire team: Zaeed dies. Bring Jack and Tali to the final fight. That leaves Miranda, Mordin, Samara/Morinth and Legion to hold the line. Mordin will almost certainly die, Legion and Samara/Morinth will probably die, and Miranda might just survive. That's the best I can do. It's hard for two reasons: 1) Saving Jack using the ship's armour leaves you with one additional person to hold the line, and 2) bringing Tali with you to the final fight means that you're leaving Miranda behind to hold the line. If Tali stayed behind and Miranda went with you, everyone at the line would almost certainly die.
^There's a third problem. I intend to send Chakwas back on her own so they all get wiped out. If it helps at all I haven't recruited Zaeed yet on the theory I there might be too many people to expect them all to croak. He's still standing in the corridor on Omega...
There's a very in-depth thread regarding the Suicide Mission at the BioWare forums. Who lives and who dies at the Hold the Line section comes down to a mathematical equation. And yeah, the armor comes into play when the Normandy is fighting those oculi in the debris field.
Yeah, I'll have to upgrade the armour if I want Jack to remain alive. I can skip the other two ship upgrades by taking Tali with me and just risking the 1-in-7 odds and hope Jack will make it through, or keep reloading until she does. As an aside and purely because it's something different, I'm going to not do Liara's hacking mission and see if the Shadow Broker DLC compensates for Nyxeris still being alive.
Spoiler: LotSB - Nyxeris On my second playthrough with a character not interested in Liara, Nyxeris was still alive when I started the Broker DLC. So far, I've just got past the taxi drive on this run and the only difference so far was that Nyxeris was in the background listening when Shep told Liara about the Shadow Broker. I was hoping for a little more.
Yeah, they could barely handle all the permutations in the base game so it's not all that surprising that the DLC would be as difficult to manage.
^ Well I feel they did an amazing job so far, considering the complexity of the ME games is basically growing at a geometric rate
Well, given that all the choices are binary, you'd think that it wouldn't be too hard to try to generate content for each choice. Of course the ending of ME2 means they wrote themselves into a hole they can't climb out of, but oh well.
^I don't think it's as much a matter of difficulty as it is a matter of time, money and how much memory they're willing to allocate. No matter how much work they put into it, it's never going to be perfectly consistent or inclusive, though I must admit I did notice that there's a lot less party interjection in ME2 in general compared to ME1. You'd think the space saved by cutting out all of those Mako missions would have freed up a ton of memory. Incidentally, I just ran into a slight hitch in my "loser" play-through. I just got it IFF, did Miranda's loyalty mission because I knew I could (and did) instantly piss her off by siding with Jack in their little tiff, but the EDI says the IFF still hasn't been installed. I've been zipping about the galaxy, surveying planets, doing insignificant side missions like getting the engine parts on Omega and picking up Ish's info packets but so far no joy. I wish now I'd waited to do Jacob's loyalty mission (which I had to do to get the armour upgrade) and I really don't want to complicate things in the final mission by doing anyone else's. Who knew intentionally screwing up could be so difficult?! Seriously, how did all the people that complained that nobody survived n their first play through manage this by accident?
^ If you get the IFF with several loyalty missions yet to be done, you typically need to do 2-3 missions to trigger the Attack. I'd suggest doing the technician you intend to send into the crawlspace's mission if you haven't already. Since when you choose a bad 2nd team commander, they die anyway even if loyal, it might just help you trigger the attack.
^ I had intended to just send Jacob into the vent as an easy way to get shot of him. Besides, I've already done Tali & Kasumi's and specifically wanted to leave Legion's mission undone. I'll try playing through Firewalker and maybe a few N7 missions and see if that jump starts things. It's going to make things tight though since I wanted to do a few more after the crew is abducted so I can make sure as few people survive as possible.
^If it makes you feel better, she's alive, well and dancing on my FemShep's table. But yes, in my "looser" play though, she's going to be baby-reaper food.
These are my initial thoughts for this suicide mission: Armor Upgrade: Yes; Jack lives Shield Upgrade: No; Kasumi dies Weapons Upgrade: No; Thane dies Vent Specialist: Legion (have yet to decide if I'll do his loyalty mission) 2nd Fireteam Lead: Zaeed (not loyal) Result: Legion dies The Crew: at least 4 missions after abduction Result: Only Dr Chakwas is still alive The Escort: Mordin (not loyal) Result: Chakwas lives, Mordin dies Biotic Specialist: Samara (not loyal) My Team: Zaeed, Grunt 2nd Fireteam Lead: Jacob (not loyal) Result: Jacob dies; Zaeed or Grunt dies Hold the Line: Zaeed or Grunt (depending on who is still alive), Miranda, and Garrus - none loyal Result: All should die Final Fight: Jack (loyal); Tali (loyal) Final Result: With Jack and Tali alive and loyal, Shepard should survive. Joker & Chakwas will be waiting onboard the Normandy. Reaper base will be preserved, Shepard will stick with Cerberus. Any thoughts?
^ Sounds good. I mean, it sounds terrible, but that's what you're going for, right? I'm doing the opposite right now, btw. I already have a "perfect" Paragon playthrough with my main FemShep for ME3, but I want to do it again to make sure I didn't miss any assignments/N7 missions.