I pretty much always endorse mods, provided they aren't flat out broken garbage or whatever, but I very rarely take the time to specifically comment and say thank you. This one's an exception.
I've been playing the Mass Effect series since back when it was new and shiny on Xbox 360, and I always somewhat dreaded ME2 and really only played it for completion sake, and because you can't direct import from ME1 to ME3, and even if you could it would feel weird and leave big plot holes.
Took me a while, but eventually I figured out the whole reason I dreaded 2 so much was how there's *really* no choice to when and how you do things, unless of course you're willing to accept some seriously sub-optimal results, and that whole forced sequence/timing thing just bugged me to no end.
This latest run was my first time playing the series modded (beyond maybe a few texture mods once upon a time) and, thanks in large part to this mod, the first time I REALLY enjoyed ME2, rather than just 'getting it done'.
So, as I said in my opening... thank you. I don't think I'll ever play ME2 again *without* this mod installed at a bare minimum, which works out nicely though since you've really breathed new life into it for me and made it actually feel like a fun TRILOGY rather than the 'two great games with an intermission I had to deal with' I used to more or less see it as.
Actually i'm replaying the game almost year later after uninstalling it and i'm now using this mod and having a real blast! I'm not playing with videos deleted in my folder anymore, like i did in my last playthrough, since i figured it broke the game too much indeed the more i played it, so i decided it's not worth it and use your mod instead! Like i said this is godsent for anyone, who hates forced nature to do certain things in certain order in this game! The fact, that i can now recruit Legion as early as right after doing the Collector Ship without the anxiety of having to think of choosing between Normandy Crew and more time with the Legion alone makes this mod deserve an award! LOL
This mod is useful for at least two things - feeling underleveled when doing Horizon and Collector Ship missions (which are two of the toughest missions in the game, especially on the initial non NG+ run and when playing on Insanity!) is no longer an issue and waiting to unlock more topics with Legion all the way past end-game (which also means at least 3 or 4 side missions would have to be not completed until the game is finished!) is no longer needed! I never found myself having any issues with Arrival DLC trigger though as it's not forced at all and you can still chose to delay it for as long as you wish! (All it does is just sends email from Hacket earlier, but it's not like you are forced to do it right away like with other triggers!) But Horizon, Collector Ship and Reaper IFF triggers felt too forced (especially Reaper IFF!)... EDIT: I can't seem to install this mod with TweaksModManager! The "install mod" button is greyed out and i can't push it to install the mod! Wasn't a problem with my ME3!... ...Turns out the manager is dependant upon some of video files (or maybe this mod specifically), that i removed from my movies game subfolder (to remove all the movie cutscenes from the game for faster game experience!), when it gave an error when i tried to manually add the target by selecting ME2.exe it said - Crit03_CollectArrive_Part2_1.bik not found in game directory (or obvious reason!) This is gotta be the same reason it won't let me install any mods with it, because of these video files missing, so it can't identify the game properly??...gotta be it...
I'm glad you like the idea of the mod and hope you get it working. I'm not able to offer technical support for Mod Manager problems but you can get technical assistance at the discord - https://discord.com/invite/s8HA6dc
That said, I know that Mod Manager does check the state of the game, and if you are missing videos (that video is from a main quest) your game is going to experience issues. I'd recommend a clean install of the game from backup (or Origin/Steam/disk) and if that doesn't work, go to the discord for assistance.
I didn't get it solved, i just gave up honestly...LOL I'm playing the game an old fashioned way then...as for video missing i ran into multiple issues here and there, but nothing overly critical and it does indeed speeds up game proccess! (for example i removed the video with mass relay jumps and as a result i immediately get teleported into the cluster without having to watch video everytime, but as a result of such the sound of mass relay still plays...guess this is one of the issues you were talking about? Also i never deleted any loading screen videos...) landing and departing videos on all hub worlds (except for Illium, which misses landing sequence even in vanilla game!) got deleted too by me and so are some of the cutscenes (like Jack's loyalty mission evacuation from Praggia, Collector Ship's ambush, Direlect Reaper boarding, all the cutscenes after Omega-4 relay jump before crash landing on Collector Base during suicide mission etc...), but some of those are glitchy indeed, so i had to restore those files!...
Maybe it's because I chose the Arrival Trigger option while using PV, but I couldn't get Overload's mission until I disabled TB and went in to check. I got the Overload trigger email, then enabled TB again.
Other than that, it's an amazing mod! Maybe I'll be brave next time and try getting Legion earlier, but I'm nervous I'll mess things up and lose the entire crew.
I'm glad you like the mod and am sorry you encountered a bug.
Using the PV Arrival Trigger option along with this mod can cause issues with, well, triggering Arrival (you'll have to meet the conditions of both mods before it triggers, I think - but have not robustly tested) but I'm confused if it's affecting Overlord's email in a way that disabling TB is fixing, because TB doesn't edit anything to do with the email system. It does edit things related to the galaxy map - which is the other component in PV's Overlord triggering amendments and includes a patch. So it's certainly possible a bug has arisen, I'm just confused by the nature of this one!
First - a simple check, apologies if you're already aware. If you choose to trigger Overlord later on with PV, it will trigger after Horizon and after you have completed the first Project Firewalker level so you have access to the hammerhead vehicle. Is it possible that you were expecting it to trigger after Horizon without having completed the Firewalker level? In which case, I'm still not sure why disabling TB not PV triggered the email, but that would explain the behaviour?
If not, then would you be able to provide a log+diag? This will let me see what versions of the mod you have installed and will provide help in trying to reproduce the behaviour to see if I can get to the bottom of it:
As to the crew abduction - I understand your nervousness! But I'm quite confident there shouldn't be any bugs there. The crew's death is based on a counter based on how many missions are done after the abduction. The count doesn't start until that event has happened, so as long as you can see your crew on the Normandy, the countdown to their terrible fate has not begun. ;)
Hopefully we can get this to legendary edition too. I currently have DLC timings which all though it fixes some timing issues(It delays Overlord until you get Hammerhead, opens shadow broker after you've helped Liara and forces Arrival to open after collector base) but it's far from comprehensive like this. Also, once you have set it into one mode you can't change it without re-installing. Something like this where you can decide the pace yourself would work better.
As noted in the mod description, this mod is already available for Legendary Edition here: https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/383
You are a godsend. I literally promised myself I wouldn't play me2 again until someone made this mod (Legion is my favorite squadmate, but I don't want to get him early and lose the whole crew). Thank you so much, you've made my day! I can't wait to replay with this mod installed!
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I've been playing the Mass Effect series since back when it was new and shiny on Xbox 360, and I always somewhat dreaded ME2 and really only played it for completion sake, and because you can't direct import from ME1 to ME3, and even if you could it would feel weird and leave big plot holes.
Took me a while, but eventually I figured out the whole reason I dreaded 2 so much was how there's *really* no choice to when and how you do things, unless of course you're willing to accept some seriously sub-optimal results, and that whole forced sequence/timing thing just bugged me to no end.
This latest run was my first time playing the series modded (beyond maybe a few texture mods once upon a time) and, thanks in large part to this mod, the first time I REALLY enjoyed ME2, rather than just 'getting it done'.
So, as I said in my opening... thank you. I don't think I'll ever play ME2 again *without* this mod installed at a bare minimum, which works out nicely though since you've really breathed new life into it for me and made it actually feel like a fun TRILOGY rather than the 'two great games with an intermission I had to deal with' I used to more or less see it as.
EDIT: I can't seem to install this mod with TweaksModManager! The "install mod" button is greyed out and i can't push it to install the mod! Wasn't a problem with my ME3!...
...Turns out the manager is dependant upon some of video files (or maybe this mod specifically), that i removed from my movies game subfolder (to remove all the movie cutscenes from the game for faster game experience!), when it gave an error when i tried to manually add the target by selecting ME2.exe it said - Crit03_CollectArrive_Part2_1.bik not found in game directory (or obvious reason!) This is gotta be the same reason it won't let me install any mods with it, because of these video files missing, so it can't identify the game properly??...gotta be it...
That said, I know that Mod Manager does check the state of the game, and if you are missing videos (that video is from a main quest) your game is going to experience issues. I'd recommend a clean install of the game from backup (or Origin/Steam/disk) and if that doesn't work, go to the discord for assistance.
Using the PV Arrival Trigger option along with this mod can cause issues with, well, triggering Arrival (you'll have to meet the conditions of both mods before it triggers, I think - but have not robustly tested) but I'm confused if it's affecting Overlord's email in a way that disabling TB is fixing, because TB doesn't edit anything to do with the email system. It does edit things related to the galaxy map - which is the other component in PV's Overlord triggering amendments and includes a patch. So it's certainly possible a bug has arisen, I'm just confused by the nature of this one!
First - a simple check, apologies if you're already aware. If you choose to trigger Overlord later on with PV, it will trigger after Horizon and after you have completed the first Project Firewalker level so you have access to the hammerhead vehicle. Is it possible that you were expecting it to trigger after Horizon without having completed the Firewalker level? In which case, I'm still not sure why disabling TB not PV triggered the email, but that would explain the behaviour?
If not, then would you be able to provide a log+diag? This will let me see what versions of the mod you have installed and will provide help in trying to reproduce the behaviour to see if I can get to the bottom of it:
As to the crew abduction - I understand your nervousness! But I'm quite confident there shouldn't be any bugs there. The crew's death is based on a counter based on how many missions are done after the abduction. The count doesn't start until that event has happened, so as long as you can see your crew on the Normandy, the countdown to their terrible fate has not begun. ;)
Fingers crossed we solve this mystery!
Yay! :)