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Mass Effect 3 Hints
Galaxy Travel Tips
1 of 13: After you finish the first "Priority: The Citadel" mission, you can board the Normandy and fly all over the galaxy, scanning for various types of assets. Whatever missions you have, both priority and otherwise, can wait.
2 of 13: Which galactic clusters and systems are available for exploration will depend mostly on where you are in the Priority Missions. Most of them will have a question about what all optionals are available before starting the mission, including what new assets can be found.
3 of 13: Find the large galaxy map that's on deck 2, then get up onto the small platform that's at one end of it. You can use the map from there to bring up the galaxy display.
4 of 13: Move your selector around the map until you find a galactic cluster that you want to visit, then click on it to get the Normandy to jump to that cluster and enter its first system (which will be referred to as its "entry system").
5 of 13: To fly around within a system, point at the spot you want to head to, then click (left mouse button on the PC) and hold to get the Normandy to move toward that spot.
6 of 13: To visit another system within a cluster, go off the edge of the current system's map to bring up the cluster map. (Unless the system's border is red, which means that cluster has no other systems to explore.) Navigate around the cluster map the same way you do in-system, but note that you'll be burning fuel, which you have a limited supply of.
7 of 13: It costs money to buy fuel from fuel depots, and getting stuck between systems without fuel will force you to return to that cluster's entry system. You'll then only be able to explore clusters' entry systems until you buy more fuel. If the current cluster's entry system doesn't have a fuel depot, jump to one that does (such as Annos Basin). Or better yet, go dock at the Citadel, which gets you refueled for free.
8 of 13: Once you're in a system that you want to scan for assets, click to scan (right mouse button on the PC) without holding. Wait a second or two to see if the scan revealed anything, then move to a new position and scan again if it didn't.
9 of 13: Note that the range of each scan is fairly large, so don't just move a tiny bit after doing a scan before doing another one. There's also the danger that some reapers will notice your scans and start closing in on you.
10 of 13: When that happens, you'll get a "reaper alertness" bar that'll show you how close they are to realizing what system you're in. When the bar fills up, some reapers will enter the system and chase you. You can only escape them by plotting a jump at a mass relay or moving off the edge of the system and traveling to another system.
11 of 13: Note that once the reapers have found you in a system, they'll stay there and keep a close watch for you until you finish another mission. You might want to quicksave after entering a system and before you start scanning it. That way, you can quickrestore and try again if you're chased off before you can find all of that system's assets.
12 of 13: When you do find something with a scan, it'll be clearly highlighted in red, and you can fly over to it to investigate. If the asset is on a planet, you'll have to scan the planet's surface for it and then launch a probe at it. This works just like the mineral scanning process did in Mass Effect 2, except that there'll only be one asset, and you can quit scanning once you find it.
13 of 13: Once you start finding assets, there'll be a percentage shown under the system's name that tells you how much of the system's total assets you've found. Once it reaches 100%, there's no use in doing any more scans in that system. Note that percentages also appear next to cluster names on the galaxy map, and they tell you how close you are to finding all the assets in the entire cluster, counting all of its systems together.
