Yeah tell me about it. Fucking Earth politics seeps into everything. People can't just make a video game and keep pop culture out of it. For me it really ruins the immersion. Not that it helps with this game. In parts it really feels lifeless sometimes. I have more to say. OK I've done a few quests and for the most part fun. The game does a little bit of random freezing during cut scenes like the tram ride on the Nexus and landing and taking off from planets. Not a huge issue but annoying in that you have to ctrl+alt+delete your way out of that and start over. Cora and my other squadmate give me the shits with their random jumping and walking when you are idle. If only there was an option to shoot your team haha. If you stand idle for a while I've noticed they walk around, jump, fall, and you hear Cora cry "oww" and it is annoying. I don't know if it's just my particular game doing this but I've noticed this inside buildings or at random if you are outside. Happens to me on Eos a lot. Also something I have been wondering. If anyone knows more feel free to chime in.. If the Arks left in 2185 which is near the end of Mass Effect 2 when did the Nexus leave Earth? How long did it take them to get to Andromeda and build that? And then it's not complete anyway when you arrive. Is that a literal 600 years or relative 600 years due to time dilation and relativity from Earth?
A literal 634 years. The "current" year is given a couple of times as 2819. Like most popular sci-fi, Mass Effect just kind of handwaves time dilation.
IIRC the codex has it that the FTL drive mass effect fields don't actually bend space-time, so they effectively circumvent time dilation. It's also (broadly speaking) how they were able to remotely observe potential colony sites in Andromeda that weren't two and a half million years in the past. I suppose you could call it a hand-wave, but it's not like they ignore it and it is consistent with the established rules of the lore.
Regarding travel time from the Milky Way to Andromeda, in the previously established lore non-mass relay conventional FTL travel was stated on multiple occasions to be able to cover approximately 12 light-years per day. It took the Andromeda Initiative 634 years to get to Andromeda, located approximately 2.5 million light-years away, which is consistent with that lore. (12 light-years multiplied by 365 days multiplied by 634 years equals 2,776,920 light-years). The Nexus was in Andromeda for about a year prior to the arrival of Ark Hyperion, which leads me to believe it left the Milky Way at some point ahead of them. Maybe it left a whole year earlier, or maybe it had a slightly better mass effect drive that got it there faster.
I was thinking if the Nexus was sent under auto pilot with no crew and no organic risk they could have pushed the drives even further and sent it faster. Or did it travel with a crew onboard?
It had a mixed collection of Human, Asari, Turian, Salarian and Krogan. Adding up to about 20,000 in addition to the other 80,000 on their way in the Arks.
It did travel with a crew onboard, some of whom died when the Nexus first encountered the Scourge. Most of the Nexus' original leadership were killed in that event, leading to the crisis the Hyperion crew learn about when they meet up with the Nexus after leaving Habitat 7.
Oh OK. I was thinking they had sent it without a crew and that's how it got there before everything else. But as a future idea I mean that wouldn't be a bad idea to send an empty ship. And with no crew to feed and look after they could push the engines to get there faster.
I think I'm nearing the end as there's very little to do now aside from priority missions. It's taken a while but I think I've finally come quite attached to my Ryder. It only took two attempts the get a face I was happy with, but that speaks more the the over-simplified CC than anything else. The new eye textures really helped too I think. IIRC the only real limiting factor was fuel and heat/static charge build-up. So far I haven't seen anything that addresses that other than a vague mention of various experimental and classified technologies having been "acquired" by the Initiative. So far they haven't come out with exactly whom did the acquiring, though the codex image to the "Ties That Bind" entry kind of gives it away. Spoiler: Late game Spoilers I mean that's clearly TIM in his chair, no? I think they all left together, but there were bound to be small velocity and course fluctuations in the long trip through dark space, so they didn't all arrive together. Its seems as though this was expected as all the arcs made a beeline for their designated "golden worlds" before regrouping with the Nexus. I think you can find a comlog somewhere in the prologue mission that shows that Hyperion lost contact with the other arks just a few centuries into the journey and was flying solo most of the time. The same appears to be true for the others.
That really does look like TIM ... You might be onto something. If you finish the main story can you still finish up other stuff?
Yep, although it's beneficial to do as many of the non-task quests as you can prior to the end of the main story, as there are a number of them that will provide you with allies who will aid you at the end.
BTW howcome you can go back into the Kadara vault after finishing it? I couldn't go back into the Eos vault when that was done but the door on the Kadara vault is still open and I can use the gravity lift too.
So i've finished the game, i.e. the main storyline just now. Finished at 73% of the game but honestly i can't be bothered to really go all out and finish all remaining missions and explore all the star systems just so i can see a virtual number change on a screen, i need a break now from Andromeda. All considered it was an entertaining game but it lacks the impact of the original trilogy which may not be that fair since they had 3 full games and many DLCs to expand the scope and deepen character backgrounds (i still love the shooting contest between my Spectre and Garrus, that was a very nice bit of simple fun). At times it is marred by some bugs though i had no game breaking ones.. most of them graphics glitches and clipping errors (by the end i used Remnant Armor which has all kinds of bits sticking out which led to tons of clipping errors, bugged me a little) and one bigger bug with New Tuchanka that solved itself when i restarted the game. One that really got annoying was the game automatically choosing a dialogue option sometimes as if i clicked it myself. Storywise it can't compare to the Reapers even though the full extent only became visible with Mass Effect 2 and onwards and the final mission of ME2 still is one of the high points of the entire series that no ME game could match yet. Would i recommend it to gamers? Yes.. it is a fun game, maybe not for full price but then again there's tons of sellers out there who offer it for substantially less. At Amazon and Origin it costs 60 Euros, i found a Key seller via a simple Google search for a little over 40 Euro. Wait a few months and it'll be even cheaper. The "mission" after the credits rounds it all up nicely and sets up Andromeda 2 (is there any word on it yet or too soon?).
^ ^ ^ Can you spoiler me the after credits mission? I'm only playing the game now to see what I can do and there's no real rush for me to do anything because I feel less motivated to do this game then I did for Mass Effect 2 or 3. 1 is my favourite and I'm doing that one all over again. I'm currently on Wimire.
Spoiler: After Credits Basically you are the hero of the day naturally having defeated the Archon. You have to walk around the human ark and speak with your teammates individually who all offer their thoughts on the future and what happened. At one point you come across an Engineer (not one of our teammates) who plays you a signal fragment that apparently comes from the missing Quarian ark, they are apparently in big trouble and either are sending a call for help or a warning, it's not clear. Another scene shows the Primus, the Kett overlord, observing what has happened with the Archon from orbit apparently and he turns away, guess who will be the big bad for Andromeda 2. After that you can board the Tempest again and finish all remaining side missions and exploration of you want to do so.
Wow ..... All I can say is "obvious set up is obvious" I mean if that were sequel bait it's so damn obvious.... I hate that. Oh joy!!!!!!!!!!!! I finally finished KADARA Oh joy!!! It felt like it was never going to end with that planet and finally I 100% it at 230am and crash into bed. I tiunk there was still one person in the slums outside that nightclub that I was supposed to talk to, the "E" icon was there but I just walked past them as by this point I just couldn't be bothered. The driving and stuff was fun but the rest really just felt so tedious and boring and like it would never end. My joy seems to have been sapped right out of me with this game and my desire to go back into it is waning. I will finish it, just I'm not sure when or how long that will take because playing this game feels like a chore. Lots of filler quests that you really don't need like "go here and find this item, or person, oh look they died, run back to point A tell person they are dead" oh how fun and original. Yay me :/
So if anyone's looking for a good "murder everything in seconds" build... I've been playing with it over the weekend and the synergy is amazing. Basically revolves around using Annihilation for priming, shield-powered Lance which has no cooldown, and everything specced for shield regeneration to continuously spam Lance. Kills even faster than a vanguard due to the massive biotic combo AOE's.