Experience Guide

=Experience=

Experience gain
The party gains experience (as a whole) by successfully completing missions/assignments, killing enemies or finding new codex info. The experience gained is based on the level of the party, the higher the level, the more experience will be awarded. The exact formula is:

experience gained = x * level * ( 1 + achievement bonuses) (rounded down)

...where x (let's call it "experience base") is a fixed value for this assignment, info or enemey type. For example, most codex entries on the citadell station (perhaps everywhere) have an exp. base of 2. This means, on level 5, the party should get 10 experience points for finding a new info (without bonuses). In the "Scan the keepers" assigment, every scanned keeper will give experience points, here the exp. base is also 2, meaning that on level 6, 12 points will be awarded.

This means, that normaly it does not matter, when missions/assignments are completed. It doesn't make sense to solve assignments later to get more experience points, because there will be less experience points for all other things until then - both effects will cancel each other out.

Maximizing experience
As the number of enemies is limited, there is no way to fight endless hordes of enemies, so every experience point is valuable. There seem to be two ways of getting most experience out of the game, the first one being rather ineffective:

By trying to reach the needed experience points for a certain level exactly, the points that are "wasted" can be minimized. Example: Let's say that the actual value is 1490 (level 5 - level 6 starts with 1500) and there are two possibilities - earning 100 (exp. base 20) now or earning 10 (exp. base 2) now. It's better to take the 10 points now: 1. If the 100 points are taken now, experience will be 1590. Then the 10 points will become 12 points (because level is now 7), giving 1602 points at all. 2. On the other hand, if the 10 points are taken now, experience will be 1500. The 100 points will become 120 points (because of level 7), making it 1620 points toegether. Of course, this method is not very effective, because it will only affect one experience gain after each level, making the effect rather small.

The second way is simple: Don't fight inside the Mako. Experience awards while in the Mako are halfed. By leaving the Mako, it is possible to get much more experience points for fighting on planets.