Viable as small-scale adventure?

[mahu]

I only started this game, so I have no idea what I'm talking about. Which is precisely why I'm asking veterans for input.
I know that building your own faction is one of the main draws of this game, but is it viable to play it as, for example, a small-scale merchant? Something like the crew of Firefly or Millenium Falcom, a small, tight-knit crew on a single rust bucket, simply trying to make living in large, living universe. Empire building is fun and all and I will certainly give it a go, but sometimes I just feel the urge to drop spreadsheets and stats and simply smuggle drugs to some backwater planet.

So if such a thing is possible and viable (viable as in "fun and not completely tedious") then it would be very good to know before sinking untold amounts of hours into it.

cheers

[Belteguesian]

Yes. You can play like that, but you'll find it a bit too difficult to progress in the "main" story(ies). The first (Player HQ) requires some building (at least you are provided with the first needed blueprints), the second (Hatikvah's Trade Revolution) mostly requires a good ship (provided by the first if you are observant and qurius enough).
The other two take you to a point where an Empire is inevitable if you want to finish them. Fortunately they don't have a time limit so I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot...
P.S. I too hate building and Empires... refer to be a transport Baron in the end (OK and a bit of smuggler exrtaordinaire to be fair)

[HoloByteus]

Even after you've built a shipyard and completed the plots there's nothing stopping you from moving all your cash to station funds and returning to a small Frigate or Transport to start all over. You just happen to have a rich Dad that keeps trying to give you credits every so often which you promptly return due to your insistence on being independent. You could also just dismantle any stations.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

For most of my first 1000 to 1500 hours I had only my HQ. I only expanded once I felt that some of those lucrative station building jobs were worth doing. Then the Xenon broke my main trade route and I lost a few freighters.

Now at 2200 hours I have a protective fleet keeping that Xenon encroachment away and I started expanding my production.

The choices we are given in X4 make it so muich fun to keep loading up. One day I may want to fight my way and collect mod wares for crafting... another I may go manually trading.

We get to choose.

[The Grand Mugwump]

It is viable to play with a solo ship, which is what I'm doing right now actually. The learning curve is steep though. You will die a lot to seemingly random or unfair things, and being solo makes it worse sometimes (the AI is so bad they're not helpful half the time anyways). I almost always break down and start buying miners though or a quest will give me a free large miner. They're nice for people who still want to feel like they're playing solo since they require little input from the player besides telling them where to automine and some resource prospecting.

[mahu]

many thanks for all the replies, now i know what i'm getting into