Mass Effect 3 complete scanning guide - and how to get the best possible ending

general-gaming on 8 Mar '12 said:

bioware should had split the scanning as dlc instead of the important crew member. hell scanning is so much fun it could be a totally separate game and still sell at $60. maybe for $60, bioware could add in new scanning features and scanning multiplayer.

Lt Fatman on 8 Mar '12 said:

Wow, that's a big guide, nice work!
Put a couple of hours into this game so far, fantastic stuff.

1982alex on 8 Mar '12 said:

cool!!!

veato on 8 Mar '12 said:

When I played ME2 I didn't follow a guide for the perfect ending and just played as I wanted. I think that's the best way tbh. That why it's my game.

The_KFD_Case on 8 Mar '12 said:

When I played ME2 I didn't follow a guide for the perfect ending and just played as I wanted. I think that's the best way tbh. That why it's my game.

I concur. Personally I had no trouble keeping everyone alive as the best choices for the various roles in the "End Game" mission in ME2 were obvious in terms of logic in relation to which team members specialized in what skills. Also, given my penchant for trying to plan for the worst (that way you are often pleasantly surprised and rarely caught completely off guard even when the worst happens though it does happen that sometimes the worst is worse than what one imagined,) it was common sense to upgrade everything well in advance to charging brazenly in to unknown territory against a clearly advanced and dangerous opponent.

gamerthanh on 9 Mar '12 said:

Thanks for the guide.

appyday on 9 Mar '12 said:

When I played ME2 I didn't follow a guide for the perfect ending and just played as I wanted. I think that's the best way tbh. That why it's my game.

I concur. Personally I had no trouble keeping everyone alive as the best choices for the various roles in the "End Game" mission in ME2 were obvious in terms of logic in relation to which team members specialized in what skills. Also, given my penchant for trying to plan for the worst (that way you are often pleasantly surprised and rarely caught completely off guard even when the worst happens though it does happen that sometimes the worst is worse than what one imagined,) it was common sense to upgrade everything well in advance to charging brazenly in to unknown territory against a clearly advanced and dangerous opponent.

Both of these posts are bang on!

veato on 9 Mar '12 said:

Only I didn't keep everyone alive

humanhand on 9 Mar '12 said:

Thanks, may not use it, but it's nice to know it's there! I just pop back in the area really quickly and let the Reapers chase me again, and repeat process until I've found everything. No need to go do a mission to reset the area.

wishface on 10 Mar '12 said:

Oh f**k me no, they didn't put scanning into this game as well?

puscifer91 on 11 Mar '12 said:

whole series was destroyed in last 15 minutes... terrible ending(s) for such epic game...good work bioware...

budge on 11 Mar '12 said:

Oh f**k me no, they didn't put scanning into this game as well?

They did but it's a lot easier now (dumbed down?) and in all honestly i prefer the scanning in ME2 because at least you could actually land on planets when you found a side mission. It's a great game and all (18 hours in) but a lot of the streamlining bugs me.

photoboy on 11 Mar '12 said:

whole series was destroyed in last 15 minutes... terrible ending(s) for such epic game...good work bioware...

Exactly. This article is about getting "the best possible ending", except there are no best endings, they're all s**te!

Subject J80 on 11 Mar '12 said:

Great guide. Will use this on my second play-through,

MrPirtniw on 12 Mar '12 said:

whole series was destroyed in last 15 minutes... terrible ending(s) for such epic game...good work bioware...

Exactly. This article is about getting "the best possible ending", except there are no best endings, they're all s**te!

I agree- just finished it and now I'm just wondering wtf just happened. I've bough the collectors editions of mass effect, bought all the DLC, art books and 2 of the books, invested hundreds of hours into the game and although I've enjoyed playing the series I was totally hooked on the story... And then they end it with... That?

I feel as empty as a Husk.

BenThomasFoster on 12 Mar '12 said:

whole series was destroyed in last 15 minutes... terrible ending(s) for such epic game...good work bioware...

And the last earth mission was a really hard drag, the first dual at thessia was more entertaining to play than the penultimate dual. oh man how did it go so wrong ;_; must be pulling a bethesda and going to make you pay for an brilliant ending.

The Bossman on 12 Mar '12 said:

Great guide CVG thanks, gonna go hunting for them now.

PMIKE5 on 14 Mar '12 said:

You forgot one system in Kite's Nest, Vular. That has two artifacts and is on the far bottom left of Harsa.

kbekl on 15 Mar '12 said:

right i am a little stuck or confused here i have 3 unamed and non accesable clusters also i seemed to have lost 2 as well

i am at the part just befor going to cerberus.

i have 2 clusters that have reaper ships marking them above ninmah cluster which i cant access

also 1 cluster below sigurd's cradle again with a reaper sign that i cant access

now the 2 that are missing are the far rim and the perseus veil

any idea's on these ?

kbekl on 15 Mar '12 said:

found another missing one petra nebula

also found another non access one between the shrike abyssal and isnar fronteir

budge on 29 Mar '12 said:

Actually the ONLY way to get the very best ending is to find and complete everything in ME3 (aswell as saving everyone from the first two games) and playing at least 2 rounds of multiplayer!

BioWare are f**king liars!!

ig88 on 2 Apr '12 said:

I really don't know why people are complaining over the ending mad sense to me. Cant see any other game beating Mass Effect 3 this year. Mass Effect 4 to be one of the first games released on Xbox 720 or Ps4?????????

JolarEQ on 21 May '12 said:

I really don't know why people are complaining over the ending mad sense to me.

I agree. There was really nothing wrong with the ending. I hear people complaining about "Oh! I made all these choices! Yet in the end, they meant nothing!!" Well, that's not true. That's not true at all. They meant something IN YOUR GAME! While you were playing, those choices had consequences! Think about real life for a moment. You make all these choices, all these decisions in your life, they affect things, and then YOU DIE! Which is what happened in the game!

There was no way out for Shepard. He had to destroy the Reapers, and he was given three choices. Now, if you followed along with the story at that point, there is a change every however many years, where chaos and order need to be all fixed up. Just because Shepard is there for it this time, does not change the fact that it is going to happen! You just get to decide HOW it gets to happen.

Now, if you want to get into the technical bits, like the fact that the star systems should have exploded when the Mass Relay generators exploded, how do we know that they didn't? We never see that. All we see is the Normandy landing somewhere. Perhaps they were out of range. We never were told how much of a system is destroyed. What if the relay was at the very edge of a super huge system? It's possible that the star wasn't destroyed, and some of the planets survived.

My only gripe is some of the people that got off the Normandy at the end. Ash was with me on the ground at the end, so I don't know how she was up on the Normandy, but hey, things happen. The ending, though? No big deal. It was fine.

Meh Carez on 14 Dec '12 said:

This is a helpful guide but is has some stuff missing. A few systems with with available scans aren't listed. The Crecent Nebula for one.