Mass Effect Legendary Edition: ME1 Ep 6 – Planetary Exploration – Pt 2

We’re back in Mass Effect Legendary Edition for Episode 6, Part 2, and this time we’re continuing our planetary exploration, clearing out Geth installations, collecting resources and working through some of the assignments we’ve picked up along the way.

This wasn’t originally the plan for the evening. I’d intended to play board games, but my hip wasn’t cooperating, so those were postponed until the following Thursday. Mass Effect was a more comfortable alternative, although the Mako certainly made sure things weren’t entirely relaxing!

Between two rather unpleasant encounters with thresher maws, some interesting discoveries on the Citadel and a few unexpected conversations with chat, we managed to get quite a bit done.

🌌 About the Game

Mass Effect Legendary Edition brings together BioWare’s acclaimed science-fiction RPG trilogy, including Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, remastered and optimised for 4K Ultra HD. It also includes over 40 pieces of downloadable content, alongside promotional weapons, armour and equipment packs.

We play as Commander Shepard, commanding the Normandy and exploring a galaxy populated by different alien civilisations, political factions and plenty of dangerous enemies. The choices we make influence our relationships, missions and the wider story, while exploration offers all sorts of additional assignments beyond the main campaign.

🚀 Where We Are in the Journey

We’re still working through the first Mass Effect, taking time to explore the galaxy rather than rushing through the main storyline.

In the previous part of our exploration, we’d already started dealing with the Geth incursions in the Armstrong Nebula. The plan now was to finish clearing their remaining outposts, locate their main base and continue surveying the nearby systems.

I’ve also been keeping track of our progress using a spreadsheet, marking completed systems in grey. It’s particularly useful when there are so many planets, minerals and assignments to keep track of.

🎮 What Happens in This Episode

We started by returning to the Armstrong Nebula to deal with the remaining Geth outposts. Rather than heading straight into another main story mission, I wanted to finish clearing the Geth installations and continue surveying the planets for minerals and other resources. Admiral Hackett also contacted us about a rogue military virtual intelligence responsible for killing seventeen marines, although I decided to leave that assignment for another time.

The early part of the stream involved plenty of driving around in the Mako, working our way across some rather awkward terrain and trying to visit all the marked locations without missing anything. The Geth weren’t making things particularly easy, with radar interference, defensive installations and reinforcements arriving while we were clearing their outposts. At one point, a Geth landing craft appeared and we had to deal with more enemies before continuing our exploration.

I was also keeping track of our progress using my spreadsheet, marking systems in grey once we’d finished exploring them. It makes things much easier when there are so many planets to survey, although I still managed to find myself on the wrong side of a hill occasionally while trying to reach the next location.

Then we came across a suspiciously open circular area that looked rather like thresher maw territory. I had a fairly good idea of what might happen, so I saved the game before investigating. That turned out to be a sensible decision, because the creature erupted from underground and promptly destroyed us.

The second attempt went considerably better, although it certainly wasn’t straightforward. We had to keep the Mako moving to avoid the creature’s attacks, use the boosters to get out of danger and find opportunities to repair before going back in for another attack. The thresher maw also had a habit of disappearing underground just when I wanted to shoot it, and its health seemed determined not to reach zero. We eventually defeated it, but unfortunately the achievement I’d been hoping for didn’t appear.

The Mako continued to provide a few problems of its own throughout the evening. I repeatedly confused the button for getting out of the vehicle with the one that returns us to the Normandy. I’ve been used to the opposite button arrangement since playing the original Mass Effect back in 2007, and apparently that’s proving rather difficult to change. It’s particularly annoying when all I want to do is get out and investigate something, only to find myself heading back into orbit instead!

We also continued working towards the squadmate achievements. I’d been keeping Liara and Garrus in the party because both still needed progress towards their respective ally achievements. That meant sticking with the same companions for quite a while, even when another squad member might have been more useful for a particular assignment.

There was plenty of conversation with chat between the firefights. We discussed older Mass Effect achievements, Red Dead Redemption, GTA and some of the games I might revisit on stream in the future. I also remembered taking time off work for major game releases and getting through Mass Effect 3 rather quickly when it originally came out. At one point, I even went looking through my old achievements to work out exactly how long it had been since I’d played Red Dead Redemption.

The conversation eventually wandered into films as well, including Tron: Legacy, Rogue One, Lucy, In Time and Logan’s Run. We talked about visual effects, storytelling and how a film can still be enjoyable even when critics aren’t particularly enthusiastic about it. I’ve always felt that a good story can make a film worth watching, even if everything else isn’t perfect.

Back in the game, we’d finally cleared enough Geth outposts to locate their primary base in the Grissom system. This was the final part of the Geth Incursions assignment, so we headed down to finish the job. There was another substantial fight involving the Mako, followed by more enemies inside the installation itself. We also had to deal with weapons overheating, collect the available equipment and work through some slightly awkward decryption before everything was finished.

Once we’d eliminated the remaining Geth, Admiral Hackett contacted us to confirm that the operation had been successful. Apparently, the Geth had been preparing a much larger offensive, and clearing their installations had prevented a considerable loss of life. That was another assignment completed and another section of the spreadsheet ready to be marked grey.

Back aboard the Normandy, Tali wanted to speak to us about the information we’d recovered from the Geth control nodes. She explained that the data could help the quarians understand how the Geth had developed since turning against their creators, potentially helping her people recover their homeworld someday. I agreed to give her a copy, earning some Paragon points and a rather grateful response from Tali.

Our next stop was the Citadel, where we encountered Rear Admiral Mikhailovich, who had arrived to inspect the Normandy. He wasn’t particularly impressed with the ship’s design, its expensive stealth systems or the fact that we had alien crew members serving aboard an Alliance vessel.

What a delightful chap!

We spent quite a bit of time defending the Normandy and explaining why its design and crew made sense. Mikhailovich eventually accepted some of our arguments and agreed that his report wouldn’t be quite as negative as he’d originally intended.

We then had an interesting encounter with reporter Khalisah al-Jilani, who wanted to interview Shepard about the Normandy, humanity’s position within the Citadel and the ongoing investigation into Saren. Her questions were clearly designed to provoke a reaction, but we managed to give reasonably measured answers. The interview resulted in a favourable public report, although Alliance command later contacted us to express some concern about discussing Saren and the political complications that might follow.

While we were on the Citadel, we also met Nassana Dantius, who wanted us to rescue her sister Dahlia. According to Nassana, Dahlia had been kidnapped by slavers, and although the ransom had been paid, she still hadn’t been released. We agreed to investigate and headed out towards the Artemis Tau cluster.

That meant another opportunity for planetary exploration, so we continued surveying systems, collecting minerals and visiting the available locations. We also unlocked an achievement for landing on eight uncharted worlds, which was a nice reward for all the exploring we’d been doing. I took some time to check Shepard’s abilities as well, spending points to improve our pistol skills before continuing.

The investigation eventually led us to a base occupied by armed enemies. After clearing the building and examining what we could find, it became apparent that Nassana hadn’t been entirely truthful about her sister.

Dahlia wasn’t simply an innocent kidnapping victim. She’d been involved with the slavers herself and had apparently been blackmailing Nassana, threatening to reveal information that could damage her position. By the time we discovered what had happened, Dahlia was already dead.

When we returned to confront Nassana, she admitted that she’d concealed the truth to protect her reputation. Rather than accepting a straightforward credit payment, I chose the reward that would give us access to specialist asari equipment in the future. That seemed like the more useful option, particularly with so much of the game still ahead of us.

Meanwhile, chat was having a few problems of its own. Chrissy’s internet connection wasn’t behaving, which led to a discussion about routers, connection lights, possible outages and whether everything had been switched off and on again. There were the inevitable references to The IT Crowd, along with a story about an engineer who’d previously managed to move my own internet connection to the wrong socket.

We also discussed football and various other things while exploring. Socks was apparently determined to occupy a chair, and the subject of putting the bins out eventually came up. That led to the suggestion that AIDA could perhaps handle automated bin-night reminders in the future. It would certainly be one more thing to keep track of without having to remember it ourselves.

Our next significant assignment took us into the Sparta system, following a distress signal connected to a group of missing Alliance marines. Admiral Kahoku had been looking for information about his missing soldiers, and we’d finally found a possible lead.

Unfortunately, that lead brought us into another encounter with a thresher maw.

After the problems we’d already had with the first one, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about facing another, but we managed to defeat it and investigate the area. We discovered the remains of the missing marines, along with evidence that somebody had deliberately positioned an Alliance distress beacon to lure them into the creature’s territory.

That raised some rather worrying questions. This wasn’t simply a patrol that had encountered a dangerous creature while exploring. Somebody appeared to have arranged the whole thing, knowing that anyone responding to the signal would be walking into a trap.

We returned to the Citadel to report our findings to Admiral Kahoku. He was understandably devastated to learn what had happened to his men and determined to discover who was responsible. I actually reloaded a save during our conversation because I’d missed a piece of dialogue and wanted to hear what he had to say properly. With a story like this, I didn’t want to miss any of the details.

There was also another Citadel assignment involving an investigator who wanted our help gathering evidence about potentially dangerous working conditions among the traffic controllers. The plan involved planting a surveillance bug, and although I’d initially agreed to take it, I ultimately decided against installing it.

That earned us some additional Paragon points, which was useful given the way I’ve been playing Shepard throughout the series.

We also finally unlocked the Turian Ally achievement! This was particularly welcome because it meant Garrus no longer needed to remain permanently assigned to the squad while we worked towards it. Liara’s corresponding achievement was still outstanding, but at least we now had a little more flexibility when choosing companions for future assignments.

Before finishing, we received another message concerning Admiral Kahoku’s investigation. He’d identified Cerberus as the organisation responsible for the deaths of his marines. Apparently, Cerberus was a rogue Alliance black-ops organisation involved in illegal genetic experiments, which made the deliberate placement of the distress beacon even more concerning.

It looks as though we’ve uncovered the beginning of another assignment chain, and we’ll have to investigate what Cerberus has been doing when we return to it.

We also received an assignment in the Attican Beta cluster involving a missing surveillance drone. The objective was to recover its data module before the Geth could get hold of it. I had a look at the destination and remembered just how much exploring that particular planet involved, so I decided we were better leaving it for another stream rather than starting something substantial right at the end of the evening.

With the Geth Incursions completed, several other assignments resolved and some more achievements collected, we’d made a reasonable amount of progress. I’m hoping to spend more time advancing the main story in the coming sessions, although we’ve also still got the asteroid X57 content waiting for us.

To finish the evening, we had a look at where we could send everyone for some bonus channel-point eggs. After discussing the options with chat, we settled on Angry Joe, who was playing Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance.

That brought another enjoyable session to an end. We’d dealt with two thresher maws, finished clearing the Geth from Armstrong, discovered the rather unpleasant truth behind a couple of assignments and uncovered a new mystery involving Cerberus. We’d also managed plenty of conversations about games, films, internet problems and everything else that came up along the way.

And, perhaps most importantly, there were a few more systems marked grey on the spreadsheet!

📺 Watch the Episode

You can catch the complete planetary exploration session here:

Watch Mass Effect Legendary Edition – ME1 Episode 6, Part 2

You can also visit my YouTube channel or follow the complete Mass Effect Legendary Edition playlist.

If you enjoy the episode, please leave a like, share your thoughts in the comments and subscribe for more.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

The Normandy still has plenty of places to visit, and there’s always another assignment waiting for us. Whether you’re helping me remember which Mako button to press, discussing the latest discovery or simply enjoying the conversation, you’re welcome aboard.

Come and join us live on Twitch or YouTube. The conversations with everyone watching are as much a part of these streams as the gameplay itself.

🌐 Community & Links

There’s plenty happening beyond the Normandy. Whether you want to catch the next stream, join the community or explore my other projects, here are the places to find everything.

Live — Join us for the next journey across the galaxy:

Twitch | YouTube

Community — Continue the conversations between streams:

Discord

Socials — Keep up with what’s happening across the wider network:

TikTok | Bluesky | Instagram | Facebook | Threads | X

Music — Listen to my music between adventures:

Spotify | Apple Music

Support — Help keep the streams and other projects going:

Fourthwall | Teespring | Streamlabs

More — Explore my other projects and services:

Business Centre | Download the Brochure | About Me | Blog

🪐 Two Thresher Maws Later…

That was another productive session of planetary exploration. We’ve cleared the Geth from Armstrong, resolved several assignments, picked up achievements and uncovered a troubling new storyline involving Cerberus.

Next time, we’ll hopefully make more progress with the main story, with the asteroid X57 content also waiting for us. There’s still plenty left to explore, and no doubt the Mako will continue to provide its own challenges.

Thanks to everyone who joined in, chatted and kept me company throughout the evening. I’ll see you in the next one!

— Dr Ravenholm