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One of the innovative features of mass effect was its weapon upgrade system. By defeating enemies or chatting with merchants you could purchase upgrades that enhance your weapon. Many people found this situation confusing though, but it was very useful to help beat some of the tougher bosses and challenges in the mass effect game.
With mass effect 2 on the way, I’ve been playing through the original mass effect again and been paying special attention to the weapon upgrades. The result is this guide, which I hope will help you pick the mods that are right for you!
Weapon mods, 101.
First of all, you don’t NEED weapon upgrades to beat the game. If you keep getting your butt handed to you by mass effects legions of enemies, it may well be down to you playing poorly, or having a poor build, or needing to buy new equipment. That’s not to say the a weapon upgrade doesn’t make the difference between life and death in mass effect, but if you’re being soundly beaten, don’t expect sticking some fancy McGubbin onto your guns to help!
Broadly speaking, there are two main divisions of weapon upgrades in mass effect. The first is the actual weapon upgrade, which modifies your gun in some way, and the second is the ammo upgrade, which puts special status effects on your target.
These are then further divded into different types which have different effects, and then divided yet again into levels. At this point though it gets easier, as the only difference in levels is how effective the upgrade is. It’s important to know this so you know exactly just what upgrade you are fighting to your weapon.
We will begin by looking at the first of these divisions, the weapon upgrades.
Weapon Upgrades.
Stability upgrades
Stability upgrades do exactly what they say on the tin! They are some of the most utilitarian upgrades in mass effect. They are divided into three tiers. From worst to best they are recoil dampener, Kinetic stabilizer and Kinetic coil. They all have the same effect- they increase your weapon stability. This means the ‘zone of fire’ doesn’t expand so quickly, meaning you can place your shots more carefully on the target, meaning you hit more often, meaning you do more damage to everything. The Kinetic coil has the added bonus of giving you a small direct bonus to damage. If you’re not sure which of mass effect’s enemies you’ll be facing, stability upgrades are always a default option.
The best time to use this upgrade is when you’re facing uncertain situations. You won’t be doing the best damage possible, but you WILL get an advantage.
These work best with the assault rifle and pistol, but also find use with the shotgun.
Barrel Upgrades
Another three tiered weapon upgrade, these are for mass effect players who like lots of boom to their shots! The three tiers are: High Calibre barrel, rail extension and scram rail. They all have the same effect though- they increase the damage of each individual shot, at the expense of increasing the amount of heat generated by each shot. This means that while each shot does more damage, you can’t fire for as long before you need to let the weapon cool down. Oh, and the tier one upgrade also lowers your fire rate too.
This upgrade finds its best use on weapons that you don’t fire frequently anyway. Shotguns and sniper rifles are the best, as they have a massive damage to begin with, meaning they get even more! Plus, their slow rate of fire means most of the heat generated by this weapon upgrade will disperse before your next shot anyway. I would advise avoiding high calibre barrels all together though.
Cooling upgrades.
These weapons are the soldiers friend! A two tier upgrade, both of them reduce the amount of heat generated each time your weapon fires, and the second tier also adds a damage bonus (tier one, heat sink, tier 2, frictionless materials).
If you have a high assault rifle skill, these weapon upgrades can let you fire your assault rifle accurately and for extended periods of time for massive damage- even more so with the frictionless materials weapon upgrade. These are not worth it on most other weapons.
Sight Upgrades.
These increase your accuracy. Important for sniper rifles, but not much else. Tier one only.
Detection upgrades.
These come in two tiers, tier one being combat scanners and tier two being combat optics. Both weapons upgrades help cancel out the effect of geth stalkers (which Jam your radar), but the tier two version also pumps up your accuracy. To be honest, these are not much use, as you can easily track down enemies by sight. The higher tier combat optics though are great for sniper rifles!
These are all the weapon upgrades available in mass effect. Some are good, some are bad, but they all have their place. Hopefully, you will now know what you need to use to defeat your enemies… but this is only half the story! In the next article, we look at the second part of weapons upgrades in mass effect- ammo upgrades.
Written by EvisT
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