Mass Effect 2: Survival Mission help.

[Nescabarr]

I'm near the end of Mass Effect 2, and I haven't completed it before, and I'm told that there's a mission in which you have to make decisions which impact the end of the game. Can someone give me a decent list of choices that will allow me to survive "The Suicide Mission".





- Gooooood evening Madaaam!

 

[AzureRaven]

Basically, you need to fully upgrade your ship, (3 upgrades), and choose the right people for certain tasks to allow everyone to get out alive. Great source of info is here [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Suicide_mission#Suicide_Mission].

Follow that and you should be A-ok. Just pay attention the part where it tells you who to pick for what, it lead me through perfectly fine.

If not, I can just copy and paste something similar:

Spoiler

The following list shows, in order of preference, which crew member will die if you haven't upgraded that part:

Heavy Ship Armor: Jack
Multicore Shielding: Kasumi, Legion, Tali, Thane, Garrus, Zaeed, Grunt
Thanix Cannon: Thane, Garrus, Zaeed, Grunt, Jack, Samara/Morinth
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A Specialist Technician is required to infiltrate via the station's vents to bypass the defenses and doors and open the central gate for the rest of the squad.
Ideal: Tali, Legion, or Kasumi.
Non-Ideal: Anyone else, or a disloyal technician, as they will be shot in the face while forcing the door shut.
A Fire-team Leader is required for the second team. The briefing conversation mentions that this member must be experienced in leading a team.
Ideal: Garrus, Jacob, or Miranda
Non-Ideal: Anyone else, as they will get your specialist technician killed, even if a loyal Tali, Legion, or Kasumi was chosen.
Your Team ? will be fighting against Collector Drones, Harbingers, and several Collector Assassins, which all have biotic barriers on harder difficulties (Drones gain barriers on Hardcore and Insanity only). Characters with Warp, Incinerate, and Concussive Shot powers are a good choice. Warp and Concussive Shot are effective at taking down biotic barriers. Warp and Incinerate deal damage against armor - with Incinerate dealing decent damage against organic enemies along with setting them on fire for a few seconds, and it does some damage against barriers.
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A Biotic Specialist to generate a shield, protecting the squad against Collector swarms.
Ideal: Samara/Morinth or Jack.
Non-Ideal: Anyone else. Doing so will result in one of your squadmates being carried off by a Seeker swarm.
A Fire-team Leader for the second team (referred to by Miranda as "the diversion team").
Ideal: Garrus, Jacob, or Miranda. Note that Miranda will not die here even if disloyal.
Non-Ideal: Anyone else. There is a possibility of this leader dying as the doors close at the end of the long walk (shot in the stomach as the door closes).
An Escort to guide the Normandy crew back to the ship. However, you can't use this person for the final battle. Choosing no one results in the death of the Normandy crew.
Ideal: Mordin. This will ensure his survival because he has a strong chance of dying if he doesn't escort the crew back, even if he is loyal. Otherwise, any loyal squad member is guaranteed to successfully escort the crew back to the ship.
Non-Ideal: A team member that you have not secured loyalty from. This squad member will perish while escorting the Normandy crew. Also, a squad member with a high "defensive skill" value (Grunt, Zaeed, Thane), as this may indirectly cause Mordin's death if he is left to hold the line.

Your Team ? You will be fighting against Drones, Harbinger, Assassins, waves of Husks and Abominations, and a Scion.
Tali and Legion are probably preferable for this segment; their combat drones can escape the biotic field safely and root out any dug-in enemies.
Another strategy might be taking some good damage dealers. Jack, Zaeed, Grunt or Thane will do much more damage, especially important for husks!
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The team you pick here will stay with you for the rest of the suicide mission ? you will be fighting against Drones, Harbinger, Assassins, Abominations, Scions, and one giant Human-Reaper larva.
Ideal: Squad members that are loyal to you and are less suited for defensive tasks such as Mordin, Jack, Kasumi, and Tali.
Non-Ideal: Squad members that are not loyal to you. They will die after the battle as the Collector station begins to fall apart.
Note: The teammates you do not pick are automatically assigned to hold the line from the Collectors. A 'defensive skill' value is calculated for the 'hold the line' group as a whole, based on a defensive value inherent to each character. Loyal characters gain a bonus to this value. If the 'defensive skill' check is not high enough to ensure all characters' survival, squad members will be designated to die based on their vulnerability, with Mordin taking priority if he is present. Leaving behind strong defenders, such as Grunt, Garrus, and Zaeed will increase the group's odds of survival. In contrast, certain characters such as Jack, Tali and especially Mordin have less skill in holding their position and should be removed through escort duty or taken along. The entire group will survive as long as the combined defensive skill is high enough, otherwise the game picks a squad member to die based on the scenario of who was left behind and how loyal the group members are. (Squad members who are not loyal are most likely to survive here than anywhere else, provided the group's collective defense skill is high enough, although they will be the first to die if the skill is not.) Leaving behind two strong defenders like Garrus, Grunt, or Zaeed should suffice, provided you haven't lost too many people.
Note: The order squad members die is as follows: any non-loyal squad members, Mordin, Tali, Kasumi, Jack, Miranda, Jacob, Garrus, Samara/Morinth, Legion, Thane, Zaeed, Grunt

I separated the different parts with hyphens. Good luck.

 

[burningdragoon]

Tip 1: complete everyone's loyalty mission and make sure you resolve any disputes between characters, which is easy as long as you have enough paragon or renegade.

Tip 2: upgrade your ship

The choices that let you survive the suicide mission are all during the mission itself. There's a flowchart somewhere that will let you know how everything works out depending on your choices that also takes into account tip 1 and 2. For you, as in Shepard, to survive, you just need to make sure not every else on you team dies.

However, that's kind of spoiling the whole thing if you just look up how to do it. Just do what you think is best and see how it turns out for at least the first time.

 

[DVS Storm]

Well I always go with this: Tali doing tech stuff in the tunnel or pipe or whatever that is, Garrus is the leader of the second team the whole time, Samara is the biotic expert(basically she creates a barrier. I hope that I don't spoil stuff here) and I always keep Thane and Mordin with me, because they are the best against Collectors imo. Also I've heard that Mordin has the highest chance of dying at some point if you don't have him in your squad. Then there is the part when you need to choose one of your team to escort some dudes. In my experience it doesn't matter who you send.

I've always used this combination and no-one has died so far(four playthroughs). There are some coincidences from what I've heard, so basically my plan isn't 100 % bulletproof, but it has worked so far. Also welcome to the Escapist!!!

 

[Rawne1980]

Already been said but i'll say it again to hammer it home.

Do the loyalty missions and speak to them.

Upgrade your ship.

Your ship is important.

 

[MightyRabbit]

As well as getting the armour, weapon and shielding upgrades beforehand make sure you complete all the loyalty missions BEFORE getting the Reaper IFF. Afterwards you only have enough time for one more mission and there's an extra mission that unlocks afterwards that if you don't complete, will lead to a character's death.

For each upgrade you don't get, someone dies. For each character that's not loyal, they die holding the line if they don't die sooner. Also, someone'll die for each person you put on the wrong job.

Tali or Legion for tech, Garrus can lead both secondary teams (other people can lead the first and second, but Garrus is the only one that can do both), Samara Jack or Morinth must be your biotic person and either keep Mordin with you or make him be the escort or he's pretty much guaranteed to die.

 

[Nescabarr]

I never thought it to be that complicated. I just thought that you had your entire team with you, and you sent them off to do different things. Jheeeeez.