How does the story work?

[Chilly Breeze]

I'm totally new to this and a little confused about how the story works here. Is there a big over-arching plot or small "quest" lines? Or just a free for all sandbox?

[CTHOMP]

There are a few story/plots you can follow. Or you can just do missions, corporation missions are good because if you do enough usually you get unique/rare ships as rewards for doing them.

Go to www.roguey.co.uk
There you will find a lot of great info in each X game. From the good ones, X to X3AP and the bad one X-Rebirth that caused Roguey to give up on tje series.

[X-the Unknown]

Dunno, never did the stories in my life. The game is too much fun and you make up your own story in the open ended version. Build an empire. Join the military, Become a rogue mercenary. Sell weed :) Run from the Law. It's almost like there is no limit to what you can do in the open story.

[CTHOMP]

However, doing the stories/campaigns often gives you access to new areas, a player hq, access to more ships, etc. Definitely worth doing.

[insolent1]

Most of the plots are well worth doing due to their rewards, especially the PHQ/hub/unfocused jumpdrive and the terran plot gives 10 or so ships(some can't be purchased) and access to aldrin which opens up later plots and gives access to aldrin ships which are very noteworthy

[Darius]

Originally posted by Chilly Breeze:

I'm totally new to this and a little confused about how the story works here. Is there a big over-arching plot or small "quest" lines? Or just a free for all sandbox?

Each story line has a prerequisite to start. The X3Wiki site or Rougey's both have pretty comprehensive lists.

Mostly you are looking at:

Trade Rank
Combat Rank
Faction Rank

A couple are activated simply by entering the correct sector. The information generally appears as a message either on screen on in your log.

[John Hadley]

Things to do in the galaxy:
Explore and establish reconaissance satellites for trading or military operations in over 200 sectors of space
Collect loot crates and derelict ships hidden all over the galaxy
Collect every type of ship (over 100) through combat and capture. Some ships are only available in this way.
Complete all story plot lines
Complete all corporation plat lines
Maximize your faction standing with each of the six races so you can purchase all of the stations, ships, and items.
Claim your own sectors of unpopulated space, build your own stations and factories, and protect them against increasing pirate and alien threats.
Max out your trade rank
Max out your combat rank

There are several long story plot lines in the game. Some of these story lines provide you with new ships and equipment or access to new parts of the galaxy. Completing all of them requires you to build a vast empire of factories and ships so you will have some predefined purpose if you choose to attempt them and that purpose will lead you through a hundred or more hours of gameplay. You don't have to follow them though.

There are several individual mission types available randomly at stations all over the galaxy that you can participate in aside from the story plot lines to earn money to help you afford more and bigger ships and get enough money to build stations and factories in the galaxy. You can do this as a money making venture to create a stream of income or as a means to an end such as to create missiles for your personal use in combat or create products needed to complete one of the story quests.

There are different types of ships, ship equipment, and stations available for purchase from different factions in the game that you can only buy once you have increased faction standing with that faction. Your desire to discover and buy these may offer you purpose in gameplay. You can raise that standing through doing random missions or killing enemies of that faction in their space.

There are a number of corporate headquarters of different organizations to discover in the galaxy and each of them offers a quest series that includes a mix of fixed and random quests to raise your faction standing with them. If you complete these quest lines then you can get special rewards that you can't get anywhere else from them.

The fleets in the galaxy that you can fight with get stronger the higher your combat rating. If you fly around and kill either civilian or enemy ships the fleets will become greater and offer you more challenge to defeat them as well as greater prizes in terms of the size of ships you can capture. Capturing large ships is more involved than capturing small ships so you will have motivation to build and manage a fleet of ships with specialized personnel carriers and a force of marines that need lots of practice and training to make them successful against the most difficult targets. In this way you will have some motivation for expanding your fleet and factory capabilities even if you never do any missions or follow any storylines at all.

The game does not end if you complete all the story lines and corporate plot lines so you won't "win" by completing them, but participating in them gives you rewards and some sense of purpose for many many hours if you cannot creatively choose your own goals and purposes in the galaxy's sandbox. If you don't want the rewards they provide and don't need outside direction for your gameplay then you can ignore them and do whatever you want to do either with or without the completion of random missions that are not related to any plot lines.