One of the very few lowlights among fans of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition is the planet scanning that occurs during the second installation. It's time-consuming, uneventful, and it's not much of a minigame. Unfortunately, getting the best ending requires spending time performing the activity, which can make gamers feel like quitting as soon as they're free to roam the galaxy.
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It doesn't have to be this way; in fact, with the right knowledge and tactics, Shepard can be 100% done scanning for minerals in under an hour. Players often overuse their scanner, backtrack their progress, or inefficiently search for minerals. By following a few basic steps,
Find a planet to harvest. While slowly rotating the planet to the right, move the scanner all the way to the north and south poles. When the scanner starts to spike (gamers using a controller will feel a vibration), there's a mineral node nearby.
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Briefly stop rotating the planet around. Locate the spot with the highest peak of resources (some spots will have two resources to gather), then fire a probe. The higher the peak, the more resources will be acquired.
Do not fire at every peak. This is a recipe for going broke and there are more than enough mineral nodes in the galaxy. Some good advice is not to fire a probe unless the mineral node is higher than four or five bars up.
After firing a probe, renew the process of going up and down while slowly scrolling until coming across another probe location; this means the planet has already been scanned all over.
Yes, it's still possible to miss a few nodes, but don't bother searching for more unless the planet has moderate or greater resources still remaining. Depleted planets can not justify the cost of firing probes.
Lastly, keep track of planets that have been scanned fully, either by writing them down or by pledging to fully scan each planet that has been visited. Players who visit every planet but don't remember which ones have been scanned will have to revisit all of them.
Mordin Solus is required to complete any upgrades, so take the Illusive Man's advice and recruit him as soon as possible. Thane Krios will double the number of probes that can be carried on scanning expeditions with his Modular Probe Bay upgrade.
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Secondarily, Samara can give Shepard the Extended Fuel Cells upgrade for an additional 50% fuel to make each expedition away from the Fuel Depot more efficient. And Miranda offers the Advanced Mineral Scanner which speeds up the speed at which the scanner can scroll over a planet.
Money/Credits are far more important than resources. Players will easily be able to get all of the resources they need after a few planets, but they will run out of money if they try to get every resource in the universe or deplete every planet.
There is a threshold after which it is no longer necessary to keep gathering resources. To get every single upgrade and research project in the game done, players will need no more than:
- 195,000 Palladium
- 275,000 Platinum
- 220,000 Iridium
- 31,000 Element Zero
Each bonus training required 5,000 more of each resource and retraining takes an additional 2,500 of each. So it's alright to get a few more of each, but not too many more.
These numbers do not factor in what can be gathered on ground missions, so anything gathered on the ground can be considered a bonus. Extra resources can provide a war asset bonus in the conclusion of the trilogy (up to 100 points), but the exact quantity changes based on minerals surveyed in the initial game. Generally speaking, having an extra 100,000 of each should be more than enough to get the maximum bonus.
Happy scanning!