Mass Effect 2: N:7 Eclipse Smuggling Depot Tips For Insanity Difficulty

I've gone over the N:7 Eclipse Smuggling Depot mission for Mass Effect 2 before on the normal level. But I've not given tips while playing this on the Insanity Difficulty setting. First, I delay playing this mission. I wait way past the Suicide Mission. Why? It's the enemies. They are three YMIR Mechs. At this late stage, I've pretty much got all the upgrades and Tali and Legion are availble. Second, check out my general tips for playing Mass Effect 2 on the Insanity setting.

1. Know your enemy. As I said before, they are three YMIR Mechs. They are armed with a machine gun like cannon and rockets. Oh, they also have shields, armor and health.

2. Your squad. As with any synth enemy, you should bring either Legion or Tali. Combat drones work on YMIR Mechs even when they have shields and armor. Mass Effect Wikipedia says you can AI hack them once you've got them down to just health. That being said, I bring Legion since his main weapon is an assault rifle.

My second squad member is Miranda. Her Overload power can rip down shields. Her Warp power is effective against armor. I take her over a second tech specialist because of her abilities in taking down a YMIR Mechs defenses. She gets the job done faster than just me and my assault rifle. Now on Normal, I use two tech specialists but since the YMIR Mechs are tougher, I need Miranda's ability to penetrate their defenses.

3. My Weapons, armor and powers. I'm a soldier, so I use the Revenant machine gun. My heavy weapon is the ML-77 Missile Launcher. Though I have seen some use the M-920 Cain. I find the Cain too slow to fire and too inaccurate. My armor is Kestrel. My bonus power is Slam. Slam works against YMIR Mechs who have lost shields and armor. It freezes them and damages them Two Slams can destroy a one.

4. Walkthrough. You know the drill. Destroy the YMIR Mechs before they wipe out the twenty crates. Mass Effect Wikipedia says there's a way to save all twenty crates on the Normal difficulty. But on Insanity it's about survival. That's because when you attack one YMIR Mech, another YMIR Mech advances on your position. That's two YMIR Mechs firing on you and they're tougher to bring down than normal.

Okay, you've just landed. Move down the hill. Note before you get to the arena, there are three short stone walls. One close to the shuttle, another closer to the arena and another right on top of the arena. Go to the middle wall or second wall. Take cover. Use Legion's combat drone on the YMIR Mechs in the main arena farthest away from you. Then open up on the closest one. You can probably mix this order up. But realize that once you engage, the two YMIR Mechs open up on you and start to move onto your position. That's why I don't take cover at the wall closest to the arena.

While one of the goals is to save as many crates as possible, the more important goal is to survive. So, be careful. When your health is critical, either use Medi-gel or wait to recover. And continue to use the powers of your mates. Legion's combat drone is helpful. The drone will distract the YMIR Mech while you fire on it. If a YMIR Mech is about breach your position, fall back to the back wall. If it breaches that position, you can fall back to the shuttle and use it for cover. You will bring down all three YMIR Mechs with these tips but you won't save all the crates. I saved only eight. Note that you may see some YouTube videos where somebody claims they saved all twenty on Insanity.

Below is a video of somebody, using a similar strategy that I did.