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Medical Bay Upgrade[]

Does this do anything other than heal your scars? I like the scars so I don't want to get it if I don't have too, but I don't want to not get it if it's needed for something else or is imported into ME3, can anyone give me some advice on whether or not to get it? (The Iron Turtle 11:40, March 6, 2012 (UTC))

If you use the upgrade, Shepard's scars will disappear completely. Lancer1289 15:35, March 6, 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I get that but does it do anything else? (The Iron Turtle 08:34, March 7, 2012 (UTC))
There's something small in ME3 if you use it, but no that's really all it does. Lancer1289 15:49, March 7, 2012 (UTC)

Absence at Upgrade Review Terminal

The Med-Bay Upgrade (Dermal Regeneration), is never listed along other Upgrades you have researched at your Upgrade Review Terminal. The upgrade itself works as expected (available at Med-Bay, the actual procedure to remove scars, if used, is recognized and even carried over to Mass Effect 3), but the fact is, whether an oversight or by design, it doesn't show up like the others at your terminal, once it's been researched.

Would this be worth a minor note/mention, if nothing else to avoid any sort of doubt or confusion (i.e players who'd maybe check the upgrades as listed in this page or in the Upgrade Guide, compared to what they have in the review terminal; might wonder what they've missed or could have done wrong, if they're experiencing a glitch... etc)? --IceQuinn (talk) 17:29, June 20, 2013 (UTC)

Got the upgrade, but never used it cuzz sith lady is sexy. Completed ME2 with over maxed renegade. ME3, I got 1 1/2 bars of ren, no scarring yet. Severely disappointed. Shadizar666 (Ruck Rules) 04:06, September 26, 2016 (UTC)
Never mind, nearly two bars ren, and scars are starting to show. Shadizar666 (Ruck Rules)

Locations[]

Is it possible to have the locations of all the research upgrades listed here on the wiki? I know that most can be purchased, but I think it would be good to list which shops have them & also list which missions/assignments that other ones can be acquired on.

I think I have seen mention of their location(s) on the particular mission/assignment walkthrough pages, which is good, but for someone who might be trying to ensure they have all of them it would be good to have a condensed listing. It's frustrating to find out after we have completed an assignment which obviously can't be repeated, that a research upgrade was missed.--N7Legion 02:14, April 9, 2012 (UTC)

They are listed in one place. If you look at the navigation box at the bottom, you'll see a link to the Upgrade Guide. Trandra 03:42, April 9, 2012 (UTC)

Tech Damage upgrade[]

I found that when I purchased the 6th tech damage omni-tool upgrade, I wasn't able to actually research it. No new research option appeared in the Tech Lab. Playing ME Trilogy on PC via Origin. -Sophia (talk) 08:36, July 3, 2014 (UTC)

Specific Upgrade Series Locations[]

For the upgrades (or research) to each items/armor/weapons that are listed in a sequence or series (ie 1/5 or 4/5) do you have to find these in specific missions or specific planets? Or does it become available automatically at certain stages or requirements within the game have been completed? If you have to find all of them it would give only one chance to procure multiple upgrades for multiple items since some locations can be visited only once. And since many upgrade tech files must be found in this manor where you get only one chance to visit said location(s) and require certain stages or levels of upgrades for the corresponding item(s), it would have sort of a double effect, putting a major dent on upgrade potential for much of sheppard's equipment and that of the crew and ship. I'm thinking it's supposed to occur automatically, but I haven't been able to confirm it one way or the other. Could someone please note whether this is the way it works or not? Thanks in advance to anyone who knows/responds. --Shark19 (talk) 07:30, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

There are a few upgrades that you obtain automatically as a reward for certain missions. For the rest, you just need to look hard enough during missions and when on random planets (Which isn't too too hard to begin with). I'm not sure if you were questioning this or not, but the upgrade levels aren't unique to their exact location (Ex. If you miss Tech Damage 1 early on, the next Tech Damage upgrade that was intended to be Tech Damage 2 will be Tech Damage 1, not an unusable Tech Damage 2) I hope this helps you out. And ship upgrades and specific squadmate upgrades are discovered by talking to your crew members. TheKingLerp (talk)
ok thx, but I see heavy skin weave 1/5, heavy bone weave 1/5, tech damage 1/5, submachine gun damage 1/5, sniper rifle damage 2/5, medi-gel capacity 2/5, heavy weapon ammo 1/5, assault rifle damage 1/5 all in my list of upgrades I've aquired. That's a lot of upgrades I still need to purchase before I start the collector mission countdown, and I'm not even halfway there, but I've already recruited Garrus, Mordin Solis, and Grunt. I was going to recruit Jack next because I wanted to get all the team members and have them all loyal. I wanted to do all their loyalty missions in the correct order because I read that it would increase their chances of survival upon defeat of the collectors. So now I can't recruit Jack until right before I have completed all but 5 missions ideally. Or at least that's my theory based on what I've read. So I guess what I was asking is whether these research upgrades that come in a series (1/5, 3/5, 4/5, etc) are available in the Normandy after meeting certain mission criteria (ie completing certain missions, talking to the illusive man at certain points in the game, recruiting certain team members, etc) or finding tech research notes in various missions/bases/planets by hacking wall safes, pda, lab computers, etc. In other words, how/where/when do they (assault rifle damage upgrades, sniper rifle damage upgrades, submachine gun damage upgrades, shotgun damage upgrades, tech damage upgrades, heavy weapon ammo upgrades, heavy skin weave upgrades, heavy bone weave upgrades, etc.) become available? I mean i realize i need to purchase each one at the research station on the Normandy with said resources, but do I need to find research notes in stages/missions/bases/planets and takes them back to the Normandy research terminal to access these upgrade options? Sorry if I wasn't clear the first time. --Shark19 (talk) 05:13, November 1, 2015 (UTC)

ME2 Jack's Multicore Implants and Warp Ammo[]

MulticoreImplantsWarpAmmoTest

I've tested if Jack's upgrade works with her Squad Warp Ammo and indeed it does, but the improvement is barely noticeable. Ammo powers are always calculated off base weapon damage (before research, headshot/point blank bonuses etc.) and Multicore Implants effect on Squad Warp Ammo is very low on its own (20% of 35% is only 7%). -- Wiki Kaczor (talk) 12:19, February 27, 2020 (UTC)

Chances of Procing Pistol Critical and Redundant Shields[]

I've looked and never been able to find out what if anyone knows what the actual % chances are for procing Heavy Pistol Critical and Redundant Field Generator; from experience and having to guess I'd say something like 10% chance for both but it's pure guess. I'm going to look into doing some experimentation to see if I can get some numbers on it. Ale89515 (talk) 19:22, June 4, 2020 (UTC)

With the aid of PC console commands to help with efficiency of testing, I've run some experiments and collected some data on what the likely probabilities for procing both of these upgrade bonuses are:

Heavy Pistol Critical[]

Testing Procedure: I used Vorcha as "target drones" for this since their constant health regen makes them "reusable" infinitely. I used a fully upgraded Phalanx pistol without any ammo power. It was very easy to tell the difference between a critical and non-critical hit. I made sure to only use bodyshots to avoid headshot multipliers interfering. I was able to do 5 samples with sample sizes of 100 total shots per sample.

Results: 31/100, 22/100, 17/100, 20/100, 29/100 for an average of 23.8% chance of a critical hit. I'm guessing the true probability is 25% considering they would likely use a round number.

Other behavior: While the description of the upgrade says "double damage" in practice using a fully upgraded pistol the critical damage appears to be closer to 50%. Either the description is wrong, or the 2X damage multiplier is only being applied to the base damage of the pistol before any upgrades or other modifiers; or the damage formula is just working in a way that's not obvious.

Using "Profile Combat Self" I could VISIBLY SEE the Heavy Pistol Critical damage modifier in action in real-time, causing Shepard's "weapon damage multiplier" to oscillate randomly between 1.7713 and 2.7713 on my screen with the Pistol selected (no other weapon had this real time fluctuation). This means a critical hit will do 1.564 or about 56% more damage than a non-critical hit, and that is pretty close to what my experimentation discovered (see below). Also worth noting is that closing to point-blank (melee) range with the target caused the damage damage multiplier to increase substantially (started seeing numbers above 3.7), indicating the close-range damage multiplier kicked in, proving that this does apply to the pistol; I tested this with all other weapons and the multiplier increased at close ranges up to melee range for all basic weapons except Sniper Rifles, whose damage modifier remained totally constant (mine at 1.5500). Interestingly, this even applied to heavy weapons (tested with Avalanche, grenade launcher, Cain, Particle Beam, and Missile Launcher). [EDIT: further testing revealed heavy weapon damage is unaffected by range despite the damage multiplier visually changing.] The distance at which the close range damage increase kicked in was 800.00 units for ALL weapons, and the multiplier increased steadily from there up to physically touching the target. I think I'll be making a few changes to some of the weapon pages based on this new data.
Using the console command "Profile Combat Target" on the Vorcha I was using as test dummies, I was able to record some solid damage numbers with the Phalanx on their health.
  • Non-critical bodyshot: 55.2, 53, 52.9, 49.4, 52.9 for an average of 52.68
  • Critical bodyshot: 84.5, 82.3, 83.9, 83.9, 85 for an average of 83.92

based on the above, critical hits seem to deal on average 83.92 / 52.68 = 1.59 or approx. 60% more damage than non-critical hits; this is probably due to where in the total damage equation the "double damage" modifier occurs than from some error. Ale89515 (talk) 06:05, June 6, 2020 (UTC)


Critical Headshots: One other point of interest: the "critical hit" DOES appear to stack with the bonus damage of a headshot, as I did some testing of headshots ONLY and noticed that a "critical" headshot did about 50% more damage than a normal headshot. A normal headshot seems to do 50% more damage than a normal bodyshot, while a 'critical bodyshot does the same. A critical headshot on the other hand seems to "double the bonus damage," or modify the damage by a full 100%. E.g. if a normal bodyshot did 50 damage, a critical hit would do 75 damage, a headshot would do 75 damage, and a critical headshot would do 100 damage. All of this speculation based on eyeballing the health bar of one of the vorcha "target dummies" I used so it's not really scientific.

OK so after being finger-wagged I decided to be more scientific and use "Profile Combat Target" to get some solid numbers:
  • Non-critical headshot: 76.6, 76.7, 76.7, 76.4, 77.8 for an average of 76.84
  • Critical headshot: 110, 110, 110.6, 111.2, 109.5 for an average of 110.26

which indicates that a normal headshot does about 1.46 or 46% more damage than a normal bodyshot, and a "critical" headshot does about 1.43 or 43% more damage than a normal headshot. The sample sizes being somewhat low, there's of course going to be variance. Regardless, this does confirm with solid numbers that there are critical headshots that deal more damage than regular headshots. Ale89515 (talk) 06:16, June 6, 2020 (UTC)

The only thing I can confirm for certain is there ARE critical headshots, the two modifiers do indeed stack.

Ale89515 (talk) 00:29, June 6, 2020 (UTC)

Redundant Shields[]

Testing Procedure: I wasn't able to do sample sizes as large for this; I allowed a vorcha Boom Squad insta-kill my shields with a single rocket (Insanity Difficulty) repeatedly in sample sizes of 20, with 5 total samples.

Results: 6/20, 6/20, 4/20, 7/20, 7/20 for an average of 30% chance of instantly regenerating shields.

Amount of shield regained: One other tidbit, the amount of shields recovered according to the description is 100% of shields, however only about 50% of my shield bar was restored. I tested this by wearing both the Collector armor which has no shield bonuses, and the Kestrel Armor that has a lot of shield bonus, and both times the amount of shields restored from redundant generator was exactly the same: about 50% (maybe a hair more). Either this means the description of the upgrade is wrong, or the amount restored might be based on the base shield of 250. It's also possible that the rockets I was getting hit with on purpose to one-shot my shields do so much extra damage that it was eating into the amount of the recharged shields as well, but if that's the case why was I receiving the same % of shield bar restored regardless of which armor set I used?

My hypothesis is the upgrade will restore 250 shields, or 100% of the BASE shield, and the reason I had slightly less was due to the "carryover" damage from the rocket that downed my shields and therefore ate into the amount restored.

Other Behavior: I also noticed that the redundancy recharge seems to work differently depending on whether your shield was one-shotted vs. worn down by a stream of fire. When the shield is being worn down by a stream of bullets, the recharge seems able to kick in before the shield is completely broken, meaning you won't hear Shepard say "my shields are down."

Ale89515 (talk) 00:29, June 6, 2020 (UTC)

Shotgun/SMG Extra Rounds & ME2 Thermal Clips[]

There was an interesting note on the M-22 Eviscerator page that said the following:

"The Eviscerator gains 2 ammo per a thermal clip dropped by an enemy and 4 ammo per a thermal clip picked up from a set location on the map. The ammo per thermal clip counts double once the Shotgun Extra Rounds upgrade has been researched."

Despite how much I've played ME2 I had never heard that thermal clips you find already lying around in areas provide more ammo refill than those dropped by killed enemies; I had always assumed a clip was a clip. Not so; the note is correct, as I have tested this (PC Version, Insanity) now with several weapons (Katana, Widow, Locust, Eviscerator) and thermal clips that are pre-set in levels as "powerups" provide a certain % more ammo refill than clips dropped from slain enemies.

Power up clips appear to give 30% more ammo than dropped clips (rounded UP, so the Widow gets two from pre set clips, and only 1 from dropped clips)

I have also confirmed through testing/use of console commands that the research upgrades for SMG Extra Rounds and Shotgun Extra Rounds proportionately increases the amount of ammo gained from both types of thermal clip by 50%; this makes sense, it's likely that thermal clip refill is based on a % of total spare ammo capacity.

This doesn't really make a huge difference in how I or anyone else is likely to PLAY the game, but it's something worth knowing all the same and is worth putting in certain pages as a small note.

Here are numbers I found from my testing, as further evidence ('power up' means a pre-set thermal clip lying around in the level, respawning or otherwise):

AMMO RESTORED BY THE TWO TYPES OF CLIPS FOR VARIOUS WEAPONS

Locust:

  • Unupgraded
    • Power Up: 78, 78, 78
    • Enemy Drop: 60, 60, 62
  • Extra Rounds
    • Power Up: 117, 117, 117, 117,
    • Enemy Drop: 90, 63, 63, 90, 90

Katana:

  • Unupgraded
    • Power Up: 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3
    • Enemy Drop: 3, 2, 2, 3
  • Extra Rounds
    • Power Up: 8, 6, 7, 7
    • Enemy Drop: 4, 5, 5, 4

Widow:

  • Power Up: 2, 2, 2, 2
  • Enemy Drop: 1, 1, 1, 1

Based on these numbers it's clear that after the Extra Rounds upgrades, the amount of ammo regained from thermal clips is increased proportionately with the capacity increase (50% higher for SMGs, about 100%, or double, for shotguns). Ale89515 (talk) 03:26, June 9, 2020 (UTC)


Ale89515 (talk) 03:14, June 9, 2020 (UTC)

Retrain Powers Causes Morality Loss[]

I seem to be experiencing a loss to both paragon and renegade points when I activate retrain powers:

Retrain powers reputation loss

FWIW, I think this is the second retrain for this particular Shepard and it is at max level 30. Has this happened to anyone else? DaBarkspawn (talk) 00:55, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if this has something to do with the percentage based system, that it somehow recalculates the percentage on retrain. I note that I've yet to do either Lair of the Shadow Broker or Arrival at this point. DaBarkspawn (talk) 01:01, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
It's because when you reset your powers, your class power reputation bonuses go down. You see, your class power increases your reputation by a certain percentage, 70% if you choose one path, 100% if you choose another. As a result, when you retrain your powers, you lose the points invested in the class power, and so your reputation returns to the value it's ACTUALLY at, pre-multiplication from the class powers. To regain your original values, simply just choose the same class power bonuses you previously had. 76.91.80.36 03:39, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Fascinating, thanks. I do think this is worth documenting on the page. DaBarkspawn (talk) 03:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
You're very welcome! I concur with putting it in the page. That way it'll assuage any fears from newcomers and all that.76.91.80.36 04:19, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
I would say the Mass Effect 2 section of the Morality page is the most appropriate place to note this; I actually thought it explained the way the Class Passive morality modifiers worked already but apparently it doesn't. Ale89515 (talk) 03:30, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Done. DaBarkspawn (talk) 22:37, 11 February 2021 (UTC)