Expanding the Sea of Stars: Why Some of Us Want To Fix Sea of Stars (and How We'd Do It)

Expanding the Sea of Stars: Why Some of Us Want to Fix Sea of Stars (and How We'd Do It)

As a longtime Infinite Space veteran, I have found my experience across all three games to be highly enjoyable, despite occasional moments of frustration. However, some aspects of the latest game, Sea of Stars, annoy me somewhat, even though I remain satisfied with the game in its current state. Specifically, some of the items featured in previous games are completely absent from Sea of Stars, and the consequences of these omissions are readily apparent. Moreover, reintroducing them would allow for the addition of more features and achievements to complement the ones which are already present. Finally, the game's ally system might need an overhaul. So, without further ado, here's how Sea of Stars could (and should) be fixed. These changes could be introduced by way of a game mod, which could fittingly be called Sea of Stars: Expanded.

First of all, Sea of Stars is missing some of the items present in its immediate predecessor, Weird Worlds. There are seven artifacts from Weird Worlds which did not appear in Sea of Stars. They are:

• Mantle of Babulon - allows one to negotiate with any race (except for the Tchorak, Tan Ru, Ravians, Pirates and Yellow Kawangi) as soon as one encounters them. Strangely, it appears in some supplementary material for Sea of Stars.
• Aethric Mirror - grants the ability to swap places with another flotilla, unless there are no lifeforms on board (which makes it useless against Primordius, derelict vessels, Damocles or the Kestrel).
• Zelulig Monocle - a high-value artifact, which, if implemented, could have a value comparable to the Marvelous Toy.
• Titanium Time Capsule - another artifact, but with a lower value than the Monocle, possibly similar to that of the other Time Capsules (Plastic, Golden, Platinum and Brass).
• Cenotaph of Rylex - another low-value artifact.
• Codex of Primordius - in Weird Worlds, collecting it would not start the Primordius quest (if it was present), unlike the Horloge of Primordius; also, it has a lower value than the Horloge.
• Alien 4D Sculpture - Essentially a scaled-down version of Sea of Stars' Zabnoth's Folly, without the property of containing two items, and fetches a high price if sold.

In addition, the following five lifeforms were also omitted from Sea of Stars despite having been included in both preceding games:

• Three-Headed Threep - taken directly from the Beany & Cecil cartoon episode "The Search for the Three-Headed Threep), it is dimwitted, pitiful and could possibly be enlisted as a servant.
• Six-Finned Bloater - a low-value lifeform with six radial fins, it is equally capable of living in the air and underwater.
• Wind Bag - described in-game as a "thin-skinned mustard-colored balloon creature which spends its entire life in the clouds", it stays aloft by producing its own helium.
• Snailopus - essentially a snail crossed with an octopus (specifically, the former's body shape and shell with the latter's tentacles where its head would be), it feeds on other creatures' life force.
• Clingon - a small edible legume with hooked spines, but of little use except for being traded for something else, and even then, it still fetches a low price.

Concept art of a Snailopus. If these things were common on the Weird Worlds of Infinite Space, then why are they missing from the Sea of Stars?

Although the Mantle of Babulon and Aethric Mirror were omitted from Sea of Stars, some players, myself included, want either or both of them to be put back in. The consequences of doing so would be obvious: with the Mantle of Babulon, you could once again be able to finish the game with a higher diplomacy bonus in exchange for having a reduced combat bonus, while the Aethric Mirror would bring back the ability to visit an occupied planet directly at the expense of not gaining any bonuses associated with encountering the flotilla(s) orbiting that particular planet. With both items absent, as is the case in the base game, aggressive play (as opposed to a diplomacy-focused approach) is virtually enforced, ensuring that combat will often contribute the majority of points scored during a 100% playthrough in which every star system (excluding black holes) is visited. This was not always the case in Weird Worlds, but reintroducing these items might lead to the addition of a new gameplay mechanic to Sea of Stars. I would call it an "aggression meter".

Here's how the aggression meter could work. At the end of a game, you'll see your total score, which includes your combat score and your diplomacy score. The former increases whenever you destroy an enemy ship; the latter increases whenever you make peace with another faction. Once both of these values have been finalized, the diplomacy score is subtracted from the combat score. If the result is a sufficiently high negative value, you will get a "Diplomat" badge, indicating that you preferred to negotiate with other factions instead of attacking them. On the other hand, a sufficiently high positive value will yield an "Aggressor" badge to show that you favored combat over diplomacy. Finally, a score in between these thresholds would cause you to acquire a "Neutral" badge, since you were equally adept at negotiation and successful in battle during your voyage across space. Given the fact that the aggression meter adds an incentive to try out all three play styles, it would be logical to add a trio of new achievements, one for each of the badges suggested above.

Another idea for this mod would be to revamp the ally recruiting system. Currently, it forces players to engage in combat against their will, and more often than usual, by occasionally not adding certain allies in randomly generated maps which contain their respective faction's home system. The opposite problem of recruiting an ally whose faction's homeworld is absent from the map is much rarer, but still occurs occasionally, and when it does, the ally's ship is always a Garthan ship. This isn't much of a problem if the Garthan ship in question is a fighter, but if the ship is a scout, it could be a hindrance at times due to the inability to trade in the scout for a larger Garthan ship. In contrast, in Weird Worlds, if an AI faction's homeworld appeared on the map, an ally affiliated with that particular faction will also be present. Moreover, if a faction's homeworld did not appear, neither would any ally ships affiliated with it. The proposed mod would fix all of these problems by reverting the ally recruiting system to how it was in Weird Worlds.

As for the Combat Simulator (a mode in which you can create your own custom battle scenarios), it would be left mostly as-is, with one exception. Currently the alliance system in this mode is based purely on the faction each flotilla belongs to. As such, if you create a scenario with an AI-controlled Zorg fleet, for example, the only way for a human player to be allied with that fleet would be to change the affiliation of the human-controlled fleet to Zorg. Weird Worlds instead featured a simple button next to each AI fleet; this button would be ghosted if the fleet was absent. Clicking on it would cause that fleet to be allied with the player, although AI fleets from the same faction as the one which the player had chosen were always allied with the player by default; on the other hand, AI fleets whose faction is different from the player's fleet would default to being hostile. I found this system to be slightly more convenient than the one currently in use; therefore, it would be very likely that the mod would reinstate it.

All of the ideas in this mod would make worthwhile additions to Sea of Stars in my opinion. However, I understand that some players would prefer to leave the game as it is right now, without the changes suggested above. To that end, it would be best to give them the option to toggle the mod off before starting a game. Even so, such a mod will open up some possibilities which were absent in the base game. That, my friends, is a nice way to finish off this discussion, so until then, see you next time!