Research and Upgrades | Mass Effect 2 Wiki

How to Acquire

This type of special items make your equipment and abilities more powerful. You can acquire Upgrades in three different ways: 

• By spending credits to purchase from Merchants.
• Find the upgrades during mission by scanning technology with the Omni-Tool
• By completing a Research Project.

Research and Technology

This interface allows you to review the research projects and upgrades you have acquired. You can buy upgrades from stores with credits, or build them using research. Review all your upgrades on your personal terminal. The research computer lets you build new upgrades for you and your squad. To build an upgrade, you must first acquire a research project by retrieving technology on missions. Then, obtain the required resource to complete the research project (Iridium, Platinum, Palladium, Element Zero) from planets or Missions. Finally, use the research computer in the Normandy lab to build the upgrade.

Research and technology is one of the key factors to succeed on your mission. Every piece of technology found, purchased, or researched enhances the combat capabilities of your ship, squad, and gear.

Scanning

Most of the planets in the galaxy map can be orbited, scanned, and probed for various useful minerals including: Iridium, Palladiun,€ Platinum and€ Element Zero. Press Y when orbiting a planet to activate the scanner reticle. Move Left Stick to move the reticle. Move Right Stick to rotate the planet. To scan the planet, pull and hold LT. Indicators on the screen show where valuable mineral deposits might be. Pull RT to launch a probe to recover minerals.

Occasionally, an anomaly appears as a visible white line under your reticle and disrupts your scanner. These anomalies are usually distress beacons or other signals originating on the surface of the planet. Follow the line to the source, and launch a probe to investigate it. This allows you to open up new N7 missions and land on the planet. Make sure that you are topped off on fuel and probes before leaving the system containing the mass relay. Do this by visiting the fuel depot near each mass relay

The Lab

The ship’s lab lies dormant, waiting for an appropriately brilliant scientist to come aboard. The Tech Lab won't be available from the beginning and will be accessible once you manage to recruit Mordin Solus to your team, until you do so, you won't be able to research or apply any upgrade.

Here you can track of all acquired upgrades, which is available once you convince the professor Mordin Solus to join your team. Shepard's private terminal in the CIC or inside the commander's personal quarters charts all of the upgrades acquired, and can help reveal deficiencies. Using the information provided by the terminal (and these upgrade charts), you can make educated moves toward gathering more upgrades, which in turn can affect which research projects you pursue.