Video games have all kinds of ways to slow down player progress by creating challenges that feel rewarding. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is no different. Between traversing the stars, fighting the geth, and making tough choices, the game has plenty to try and create meaningful obstacles for Shepard. Not all of these challenges, however, are equally memorable and rewarding.
During the UNC: Lost Module mission, a monkey will run off with the quest objective and the entire concept of the mission is a trial-and-error, needle-in-a-haystack style guess-and-check quest. Yes, players could theoretically check every single organism on an entire planet until they come across the right one, but it's probably better to just have a guide give gamers the answer so they can move on to more important things like stopping Saren.
Finding The Probe
After acquiring the Normandy and leaving the Citadel, head to the Attican Beta cluster and go to the Hercules system. Admiral Hackett will automatically give Shepard the mission, UNC: Lost Module. Land on the planet Eletania to begin.
The location of the probe is clearly marked on the map. It's labeled with an 'x' symbol on the right side.
However, the real twist comes when arriving at the crashed probe. While Shepard and the player as both expecting to be attacked by the geth who shot down the probe, there aren't any to be found. Instead, it is revealed that a monkey stole the module.
This is where things get complicated without a guide. At this point, the map is populated with several groups of monkeys and only one of these locations has the correct monkey. Each grouping of monkeys has dozens of creatures apiece, meaning that this mission could potentially take a very long time.
Tracking Down The Monkey Thief
It should be noted here that killing the monkeys will automatically give Shepard their inventory. Blowing up the monkeys is faster and yields renegade points for little to no cost. But it will still take a very long time to find them all and there is a cap to the number of kills that will add to the renegade meter. Those who find the right monkey without killing any of them will get some paragon points. Either way, knowing the destination ahead of time will be advantageous.
The correct location is north-northwest of the probe behind a small mountain range. But there are still hundreds of monkeys here, so now it's time to nail down exactly which thieving monkey has the module.
Go inside of the mine shaft and don't bother with the monkeys outside. The inside is also filled to the brim with monkeys, but the one Shepard needs is at the very back of the cave. At the end, there are two more doors to other shafts, take the right corridor and slide down.
The correct monkey is in the very back of this room. Congratulations on finding the module and saving Shepard hours of time!