The price of not going full paragon or renegade

[Horror Pigeon]

Jack and Miranda are in a fight and I have NO CHOICE but to lose the loyalty of one because both my paragon and renegade are greyed out.

Game penalizing me for having conducted myself according to how I interpret situations!

I tried to cheat using gibbed mass effect 2 save editor to set my paragon to 800 and renegade to 0. It's still greyed out. Any way I can get out of this mess?

[Renfrew]

The paragon vs renegade score (the blue and red bars) is actually useless. Your availability of paragon or renegade choices is actually based on the number of actions taken, so a high ratio of paragon choices to renegade choices means you will have important paragon options available and vice versa.

The only thing you can do is see which of your bars is higher and focus on that one until the final mission (do not do the reaper IFF if you care about saving the rest of the crew as well, do that after every side mission).

[IrationalFear]

Note that you can recover the loyalty of whoever you didn't side with by talking to them after the fight. The Paragon/Renegade thresholds for that later conversation are different than for the fight and depend on the squadmate. This re-try Paragon/Renegade conversation stays active even if you back out of the conversation to try again later.

Side against one of them will permanently block any romance plotline with them.

Other than that, though, there is no negative consequence in ME3 for Jack or Miranda being disloyal (after losing it in the fight; loyalty mission still counts).

As for surviving the suicide mission (spoilers if you haven't played it yet or haven't recruited everyone in ME2):

Miranda has absurd levels of plot armor on this mission, cannot be killed for failing tasks, and cannot die until the boss fight / hold the line.
If she is disloyal, just make sure she is the only one, leave her with Hold The Line along with at least two of Garrus/Grunt/Zaeed, and make sure that loyal squishy squadmates were sent to escort the crew or go to the final boss (Mordin, Tali, Jack, Kasumi).

Jack is more difficult to keep alive but can still easily be done provided practically everybody else is loyal.
Don't assign Jack to any tasks (although she won't die if making the bubble, someone else in the squad will).
Make sure that Kasumi/Mordin/Tali are all either escorting the Normandy crew or on the final boss fight with you.

***Regarding another squadmate fight with the same issue (but even higher Paragon/Renegade thresholds, spoilers for their loyalty missions, and ME3***
ME2 SpoilerAlthough the Tali/Legion fight that is usually later in the game also has this re-try at loyalty, be aware that you only get quarian-geth peace points for persuading both on the very first try in the argument, not after.

ME2 Effect on ME3 SpoilerQ-G peace requires that you get at least 3 points in ME2, which can be gained from any combination of the following:
Resolve this loyalty argument first time - 1 point
Destroy Heretics - 2 points
Tali is not exiled - 2 points
Be aware that this is a LOYALTY argument; if Tali is not exiled due to you handing over the evidence, then she is not Loyal and the argument never occurs (the data that Legion is trying to transmit is now public information due to revelation at trial, whereas it's classified and hidden for all other outcomes on her trial).



The one and only time that ME2 truly does punish you for not committing to P/R is that second squadmate argument if the decisions on the related loyalty missions are a bad (by Bioware's design if not intention) combination of choices. Even then, neutral players weren't actually screwed over until ME3 was released with the values for those decisions assigned the way they were (and at least ME3 puts way less emphasis on P/R thanks to the middle-ground Reputation value that boosts both bars).

As for playing without ever using P/R colored dialogue (interrupts allows):

-You can play ME1 neutral and successful; a few tertiary characters will die that don't appear in later games anyway, you can do Wrex's side quest before Virmire, and you won't skip a boss fight stage later.
-ME2 You can still complete every loyalty mission without colored text. The most extreme case (Tali's) of consequences of avoiding colored text still has a neutral resolution with optimal results as if you'd taken colored text. Only two squadmates at most could lose loyalty over failed arguments; this does not prevent keeping everyone alive in the suicide mission, is not remembered by ME3, and only affects one decision in ME3 (albeit a big one) that can still have an optimal resolution provided you made the optimal choices in ME2 (that didn't require color text).
-ME3 The Reputation stat means that a neutral player will get access to P/R dialogue that would have been blocked in previous games. Only three of these matter (the first one might not even occur in your run, the second one is a core plot element, the third one is just part of a conversation chain throughout the game that concludes toward the end).

[IrationalFear]

As for the save editor route, I suggest using the Trilogy Save Editor, as it is more consistent in available features than Gibbed's older builds: https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect2/mods/379

Changing your save editor P/R score won't help due to ME2's bizarre opportunity cost model for the system.

1) Instead , complete the argument by siding with one of them (if you wanted a romance with one of them, side with that one, otherwise it doesn't matter which).
2) Then, make a separate save after the argument.
3) Now, close the game and use the save editor on that separate save.
4) Top bar, select "Plot"
5) New bar below, select "Crew"
6) Select the squadmate you didn't side with
7) Make sure that all of the following are checked boxes:
-in party
-is loyal
-unlocked alternate appearance
-is selectable
-is specialized
8) Make sure that none of the following are checked boxes:
-is dead
-is in squad
9) In the same bar as "Crew," now select "Loyalty Missions"
Repeat (10) and (11) and (12) for both Jack AND Miranda
10) Select Jack or Miranda
11) Change both "side with X" boxes to be unchecked
12) Check the box that say "Kept the peace"
Repeat (10) and (11) and (12) for both Jack AND Miranda
13) Use "Save" at the top bar, but make sure to make it a save with a new number instead of overriding the old save (typical just increase by 1).

[Horror Pigeon]

@Renfrew Oh, I am LATE in the game. Only Tali's loyalty is left in addition to returning to normandy crash site and hammerhead missions.

@IrationalFear Thanks for telling me about killing the heretics. I would have thought sparing them would be ok because - because when they get reprogrammed they accept the logic behind it according to legion. Then again they do have memories.

I'm going to try the trilogy save editor now using those instructions!

[Horror Pigeon]

Jack was still seething and wouldn't talk but I found the fix in her romance tab was to uncheck "rejected." As soon as that was done she could have a conversation again.

[Mysti_Fogg]

The game isn't penalizing you for doing as you felt.

Doing as you felt means that you have neither the moral high ground nor the intimidation factor to sort out the situation.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Mysti_Fogg:

The game isn't penalizing you for doing as you felt.

*laughs in suicide mission