Allright, so pre-planning my Mass Effect "everything sucks and everybody dies" run, I think I've got a way to get as many people killed in Mass Effect 2 as possible:
[spoil]In order for Shepard to live through the suicide mission, at least two team members have to survive. With that in mind, I'm going with the two team mates who have the worst possible fates in Mass Effect 3: Jack and Morinth. Morinth will be turned into a Banshee that you get to kill on Earth, and Jack will be captured by Cerberus and turned into a Phantom that you get to kill during Cerberus HQ so long as you don't do Grissom Academy.
The hardest part of making sure only those two survive is finding a way to knock Miranda off. There are only two places in the run where she can be knocked off, and she must be disloyal for both: escorting surviving crew back to the Normandy, or being in Shepard's squad during the final battle. I do not want any of the Normandy's crew to survive, so I can not send a squadmate to escort them, meaning Miranda will be participating in the final battle, and will be dragging it down because she will not have her slam ability, which can be used to kill collector drones as the platforms approach. Her warp ability can be used to kill Harbinger when he's down to armor, as well as the final boss as the weak points are armor. Overload is essentially useless at this point, as are my engineers overload and AI hacking, so I won't even have a point in AI hacking at this point, and only one in overload.
The other squadmates will be disposed of as follows:
Grunt will never be let out of his tank, and Legion will be sold to Cerberus, so those two are gone right off the bat.
On approach the first check is the armor upgrade, which determines if Jack lives. I will install this upgrade so Jack lives.
Next the shields get checked. Because those will not be upgraded, I will lose a squad member based on a list. Kasumi is at the top of it, so she dies, loyal or not.
Finally the gun gets checked. Since that's not going to be upgraded, I'll lose another squad member. Thane is at the top of that list, so he is gone, loyal or not.
During the first stage of the base, you need to send in a vent specialist and select a fire team leader. If the vent specialist is a loyal Tali, Kasumi, or Legion AND the fire team leader is a loyal Garrus, Miranda, or Jacob, the vent specialist will live. I don't want that, so I send my Loyal Garrus into the vent and have my disloyal Tali lead the fire team. Garrus bites it at the door.
Next comes the long walk. I have a chance to knock off up to three squad members, or two squad members and whoever is left of the Normandy crew. I want the latter.
First you have to pick a biotic specialist. The optimal choices for that are a loyal Jack or a loyal Samara/Morinth. If you pick either of those, Shepard's squad will be intact. Any other biotic or a disloyal Jack/Samara/Morinth results in the death of a squad member. Since both Jack and Samara are loyal, I can't use them, so I'll assign Miranda to ensure that someone from my squad dies.
I'll be taking Zaeed and Morinth with me because Zaeed appears on the death list much higher than Morinth. In fact Morinth is the last person eligible to die. Zaeed dies and Morinth lives. Also Zaeed does the best weapon damage of any squadmate and Morinth has one of Throw/Pull, which kill husks instantly, as well as Dominate, which can be used to turn collector drones and abominations against other enemies. This part of the base should be a cake walk.
I'm not sending an escort with the Normandy crew, so they're dead. Also if I do enough missions between the abduction of the crew and the suicide mission, all I will find is Dr. Chakwas. Everyone's dead already.
Then finally I have to select who leads the second fire team. Choosing Miranda, loyal or disloyal, means she will survive. Garrus and Jacob will also survive, but only if loyal, they die otherwise. Anyone else dies regardless of loyalty. I choose a disloyal Jacob and doom him to death.
At this point all that's left is the final battle. Any disloyal squad mate you take with you to fight the boss will be killed. Loyal squad mates will live. As explained earlier, the only way to get everyone I want killed is to bring disloyal Miranda to this fight. I want decent firepower as well as a pull or throw, so I take Morinth as well.
Jack, Tali, and Mordin stay behind to hold the line. The way the game figures out who lives and dies is to assign each squad mate a point value based based on their defensive strength and loyalty. All three of Jack, Mordin, and Tali have a defensive strength of zero, but Jack and Mordin are both loyal so they are worth 1 point each. The game takes each squad members point value and averages it out to find an average point value. In this case it's 2/3. The game then decides how many die by that point value and the total number of squad mates holding the line. With three squadmates, and an average of 2/3, two of those three will die.
The game then checks a list to see what order squad mates die in. In this case the order is Mordin, Tali, and Jack. However, disloyal squad mates always die before loyal squad mates, so the order becomes Tali, Mordin, and then Jack. Good night Tali and Mordin. I could also have Tali loyal at this point if I wanted as an average of 1 even will also result in two deaths, and Jack is still third on the list.
So, in the end I end up with a Normandy crewed by all of Myself, Joker, Jack, and Morinth.
Suicide mission indeed.
******* Shepard, Psycho Engineer is a ****ing monster.[/spoil]
Damn that was a long post.
