In Mass Effect 2 how do you avoid the most amount of deaths?

What do you need to do in order to avoid any deaths or as few as possible during the final suicide mission. I'm willing to start a new profile and I haven't played the first mass effect so I have the default story options set. Provide as many details as possible from start to finish, and I don't have or plan to get the the 2 extra/downloadable only characters.In Mass Effect 2 how do you avoid the most amount of deaths?
Making sure you entire team does not die is very hard without knowing what to do. But I will break it down simply. Also, if you don't want your crew to die on the suicide mission as well you must be careful. If you want to make sure you crew survives you must do 0-1 missions once they are abducted. Doing 0-1 will save your crew and only a colonist will die in the final mission. Doing 1-3 missions and half your crew will die along with Kelly Chambers. Doing 4 or more missions and your entire crew will die except for Doctor Chakwas. The best way to keep them all alive is to complete all missions and upgrades before going to the Reaper IFF. this way you can do Legion's loyalty mission and go straight through the Omega 4 Relay when the crew is captured.

Saving your squad:
Make sure that BEFORE you enter the Omega 4 Relay, that your entire squad is loyal AND you have purchased the three ship upgrades (thanix cannon, heavy ship armor, multicore shielding). For each upgrade you do not purchase, one squad mate will die on the approach to the collector base.

When choosing your team to enter the base, picking them properly will keep them alive. For the initial tech specialist choose Legion or Tali. Anyone else will get themselves killed when they open the door. For team leader choose Garrus or Miranda. Anyone else will result in a death as well. Once you find the crew you need to send them with an escort. Best option is Mordin as he is likely to die if you bring him further. If the escort you send isn't loyal they will be killed on the way back to the ship. After the crew is saved choose a biotic specialist. Best Options are Jack or Samara/ Morinth. Anyone else will result in a death. For the team leader here, choose the same Miranda or Garrus. Note: You team leader will be shot once you enter the room, they will survive if they are loyal. For the final mission take with you two of your weaker members. You need the strong members to stay behind and hold the line. As long as Grunt and Garrus stay behind no loyal members will die back there. I recommend taking Thane and Samara with you. They both have the throw ability and can knock the Collectors off the platforms easily killing them. After the final battle, the two squad mates with you will be alive if they were loyal. You must have at least 2 squad mates at the end to help you onto the Normandy. If you have one or none, Shepard will die and you cannot import you character into Mass Effect 3.
do all the loyalty missons (after you recruit them, kelly will tell you that they want to talk to you) these will come about after you go to horizon



get all the ship upgrades (you can ask the squad members for UPGRADE ideas)



on the suicide mission, have garrus lead both teams, have somebody escort the crew back to the shuttle, use tali in the tunnel, have jack do your biotic field, and leave good fighters to hold off the collectors



also of note, you'll need your paragon or renegade status high to keep jack/miri loyal when they fight and legion/tali when they fight.....also, you'll have to go after the crew shortly after you get the reaper iff and recruit legionIn Mass Effect 2 how do you avoid the most amount of deaths?
To make sure your squad survives you need to get all the ship upgrades, do all the loyalty missions and choose the right people for the right tasks in the suicide mission, for example with the people you can choose from to send down the vents (Jacob, Garrus, Thane, Mordin, Tali, Legion) as far as I'm aware there are only two who are completely suitable for the job, if you choose one of the four others that person will be killed trying to close the door after they let the team through.



You need to choose the right leader for each of the fire teams, choose the right person to escort the crew back (if you choose wrongly that person will die trying to protect them, if you send the crew back alone they will die) and the right people to hold the line.



As for the three ship upgrades, you will lose one squad member in the approach to the collector's base for each upgrade you don't have.



Also, if you also want to save all your crew you need to go after the collector's as soon as they are taken without doing any more loyalty quests or side missions.

If you do 1-2 side quests or loyalty missions you will lose half your crew

If you do more than two loyalty quests/side missions after the crew are taken only Dr. Chakwas will survive (that must mean the other people rescued from the pods I've seen in YouTube vids where only Chakwas survives must be colonists)
I dont remember exactly but it depends on who you put in the positions and apon opening the gate dont do any side quest it causes automatic death at the end if you want the full chart go to gameimforcer.com and look for mass effect two survival chartIn Mass Effect 2 how do you avoid the most amount of deaths?
First of all, one of the DLC characters (Zaeed) comes free with new copies of the game so if you didn't get a used or pirated copy you should download him anyway.

You need three ship upgrades (shields, armor and guns) that you can get from Garrus, Tali and Jacob using the 'investigate' dialog option.

After recruiting all characters, do their loyalty missions. Make sure you keep the mission 'Reaper IFF' for the last. It's also recommended to do Jack's loyalty quest when you have almost maximum paragon or renegade. Otherwise you may lose loyalty. In the mission Reaper IFF you get a new squadmate. Make sure you don't sell him to Cerberus. Also do his loyalty mission immediately after acquiring him (you need to talk to him first).

It is possible to keep everyone alive even if not everyone is loyal (I did this myself). However, for simplicity's sake I recommend you get everyone loyal because your chances of survival are reduced otherwise.

The final mission of the game requires you to assign specialists. The following are recommended and have to be loyal:

Second team leader: Garrus, Jacob or Miranda
Tech specialist: Legion, Tali
Crew escort: Any loyal character, but preferrably Mordin, Tali or Jack*
Biotic expert: Samara/Morinth or Jack
Final boss squad: Anyone but preferrably not Garrus, Grunt or Zaeed*

* In the final stage of the suicide mission all characters who don't fight the boss are defending a line. These are ideally the best defenders, being Garrus, Grunt and Zaeed. The best defenders have a (hidden) defense score of 3, or 4 if loyal. Bad defenders, being Mordin, Tali and Jack have a score from 0 to 1 depending on loyalty. All other characters are 1 to 2. The game takes an average and starts killing off characters if the score is too low. Mordin is first in line because he's the worst defender. Therefore it's best not to take both Garrus and Grunt to the boss because the defensive line would be to weak. That's also why you better make a weak defender the crew escort so one weak character is out of the equasion.