Mass Effect: Andromeda guide: How to manage missions, read the map and work the tram

The second mission in Mass Effect: Andromeda, "Nexus Reunion," is not really a tutorial, but it’s still super straightforward, but playing it will open up one additional task quest, two Heleus assignments quests and one allies and relationships quest. In this guide, we’ll explore some of the mission management mechanics available to you through the lens of early missions.

Below, you’ll find overviews for the "Nexus Reunion," "Getting to Know the Nexus" and "Station Sabotage" missions, and we’ll give you some tips on dealing with side mission overload and how to handle some (infuriating) UI quirks.

Nexus Reunion mission

Grid View

Just like with the first mission, we’re not going to do a walkthrough for "Nexus Reunion." Look at this list of tasks, and you’ll see why:

• Travel to the Nexus via tram
• Locate Nexus personnel
• Accompany Kandros to Nexus Operations via tram
• Speak with Director Tann in Pathfinder Headquarters

For half of it, you’re following someone else, and for the rest, you’re just following the waypoint on your HUD. Here’s the tl;dr of everyone you talk to: Things are going even worse on the Nexus than they are on the Hyperion.

Go ahead and complete all the steps (at which point you’ll get a message about starting the next main story mission) before you move on to the additional tasks and Heleus assignments below.

Switching priorities and exploring side missions

As you talk to people, notice things and just generally walk around during "Nexus Reunion," you’re going to pick up a few extra side missions. This is how Mass Effect: Andromeda works. What’s important to learn here is how to manage all of those to-do lists. (We talked about this in the first guide as well.)

Open up your journal from the Mass Effect: Andromeda menu. You’ll see the five folders containing the missions you have available. Scroll down to the fourth folder, additional tasks, and hit the button to toggle tracked. This will mark the four locations of the "Getting to Know the Nexus" mission on your map and HUD (and get rid of the markers for other missions).

When you pick up other missions (like the two Heleus assignments you’ll find while completing this mission), you can do the same thing. No matter which mission is currently active, updates to your to-do lists will pop up in the upper right corner of your HUD as you complete tasks. Learning how to focus is going to help you a lot. This is just the second Mass Effect: Andromeda mission, and things were starting to get a little overwhelming for us.

Getting to know the Nexus task mission

At the end of your conversation in Nexus Operations, your journal will update with a new additional task mission. This is a good example of the kind of additional task you should watch out for and complete. It introduces you to the four main characters you’ll talk to on the Nexus, fills in a lot of story and opens up a bunch of new options for what to do next.

Speak with Tann

Director Jarun Tann is the salarian head of the Andromeda Initiative. (Also, he’s voiced by Kumail Nanjiani, which is very distracting.) If you talk to him a second time (after you talk to him to complete the "Nexus Reunion" mission), you’ll learn a lot more about his deep-seated racism, he’ll add another additional task ("Talk to the scientists") and you’ll pick up an allies and relationships mission that you won’t be able to do anything about yet.

Speak with Kesh

Nakmor Kesh is the krogan superintendent of the Nexus. Talk to her to get a lot of information about what’s happened on the Nexus over the last 14 months. You’re not going to pick up any missions here (yet, we suspect), but she seems like the kind of person you want on your side.

Speak with Kandros

The turian Tiran Kandros is the head of the Nexus militia. Your conversation with him will cover a lot of topics that we won’t go into here. Just as important as your conversation, there are two things in the same room you should pay attention to.

Just to Kandros’ right is the strike team missions terminal. Like that name suggests, this is where you go to dispatch strike teams on missions. There are two types of missions, strike team and APEX.

• Strike team missions don’t require you to do anything. They take a set amount of time to complete, have a percentage-based chance of success and will reward you with XP and items if they’re successful.
• APEX missions are Mass Effect: Andromeda’s multiplayer mode. Ryder takes part in these missions personally. We’ll spend more time talking about the multiplayer in another guide.

The other thing to notice in the militia HQ is the crying turian woman next to the counter (she’s got a blue exclamation point floating over her head). Talk to her to pick up the "First Murderer" Heleus assignment mission. (We’re not going to cover this Heleus assignment here because it involves going to another planet. We’ll pick this one up once Eos is unlocked in the main missions.)

Speak with Foster Addison

Colonial Director Foster Addison is in charge of the Andromeda Initiative’s colonization effort. She is a less-than-pleasant person to talk to, but nearby (when you leave Nexus Operations the first time), you’ll pick up the "Station Sabotage" Heleus assignment mission.

Speak with the scientists

On the far end of the Colonial Affairs room of the Nexus, you’ll find Doctor Herik and his team. They’re here to do two things at the moment: complain about their workplace conditions and figure out what the heck is going on in the Heleus cluster.

Station Sabotage Heleus assignment

After you’re done meeting everyone, but before you head back to the Hyperion, do the "Station Sabotage" Heleus assignment mission you picked up earlier when talking to Colonial Director Foster Addison.

Here’s why: It’s relatively quick to complete, it earns you some XP, you don’t have to travel far to do it, and it highlights a couple of quirks in Mass Effect: Andromeda’s interfaces that you’ll have to learn to work with.

You’ll pick up this side mission when a panel blows up in a tech’s face, and you talk to him about it.

Grid View

1. Check the map and pick out which of the three locations you’re going to check out first. There’s no exact location for those panels, but the sparks popping out of the wall are a good hint. We started with the panel in the Pathfinder HQ.
2. When you get to the panel, pull up your scanner. SAM will ask you to follow some wires to a different panel. Just follow along the yellow-ish wires shown with your scanner. You’ll go upstairs to the Operations Center.
3. You’ll find the next panel on the other side of the Operations Center (just follow the marker on your HUD). Repeat the process and follow the wires again.
4. When you scan the final panel in the militia HQ, SAM and Raj will narrow down a culprit. You’ll have to go find her "on the Hyperion main deck."

Using the tram controls

This is where we ran into our first problem with the interface. If you were like us and glossed over the Hyperion part of the instructions you were given, you probably tried to follow the marker on your HUD. This will lead you in circles. And then when you check your map, the marker looks like it’s in the middle of the room. That’s actually the tram entrance.

Whenever the mission marker is in that specific spot, that means you have to take the tram somewhere else. Go down to the main floor and head back to the tram.

Which brings us to another interaction quirk. There are multiple buttons on the tram controls, and those controls correspond to different destinations. That sounds painfully obvious writing it out like that, but it took us an embarrassingly long time to figure out why the tram kept dropping us off in random locations. (If this picture helps even one other person, we’ll feel justified.)

Hyperion’s habitation deck

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1. Once you finally figure all of that out, head to Hyperion’s habitation deck and talk to Zarah Kellus. She’ll point you to some security footage.
2. You’re going to run into the same tram waypoint issue here as well — the map looks like your destination is right next to you, but it’s actually a tram ride away. After getting frustrated and embarrassed, take the tram back to Nexus Operations.
3. Follow your HUD marker to check out the security footage. SAM will come up with a way to track down the saboteur with your scanner.
4. Just keep following your makers and scanning the human males you see until you track down your man.