text: X3 Storyline vs SandboxNovember 22, 2008.
  In previous X games they have held you rather tightly to the storyline and had a lot of complaints about it. So in Terran Conflict they’ve tried to make it even more sandboxish. I happen to be one of those who complained about the way they chained you to the storyline before, but not because I didn’t want storyline.
  Rather, there were often niggling little issues with the way they slaved the storyline so that you could easily do something that would force you to rollback to an earlier save (or start over if you weren’t careful saving). It was also very hard to find the storyline if you wandered off … and the storyline always carried a sense of immediacy that left you feeling you had to do it now.
  They’ve dealt with most of my issues in X3:TC by adding something similar to the “quest list” in most modern games, so you can actually turn off the quest system and come back to it. All they really need now is is writers who can make you feel a part of the storyline other than by sending you to the next destination..
  A large part of it is probably just that outside of X3 gaming has evolved and many of us now have this sense of being “on mission”. If their writers would spend a little time playing some traditional games – GTA IV, WoW, etc – I’d hope they’d quickly learn something about intervalling the storyline without having to give you the two choices between adrift and on-task like they have in the past. TC does a better job of it but I still found that my storyline run ended in what felt like foul play: having run 8-10 missions I find myself in a sector being invaded by enemy capital ships that I can barely touch. Maybe I’m not supposed to fight them (as my ship exploded I noticed my waypoint had already left the sector).
  But that sense of “something to do when I get bored of playing in the sand” is still not quite there: cause, they solved the problem in the game design but also implemented a solution in the storyline and the combination isn’t a total success.
  Still – I’m having fun blasting ships and, when the going gets too tough, I have my carrier ship jump in from far away and unleash Gold Wing to assist me. My wing control skills aren’t l33t yet, so when the going gets rough that’s not a guaranteed save … but I’m glad of that, it wouldn’t be fun if it was easy :)
  FYI they released a Rolling Demo:
  May I underline this:
  .”
  That is sooooo true.
  Bring 200 Teladianium to the sector M148.
  a) I don’t have a tranporter big enough to transport this, nor the money for it.
  b) If I enter the sector, I’m dead in one second ;)
  Seems “no timelimit” means:
  Do anything what you want, till you think you can kill everything. :D
  Drave
  My favorites are when you start out in a custom game with a Buster or some-such that goes a mere 87m/s and they want you to retreive a ship. Sadly, this ship is needed in an hour and is 3 sectors away, but they don’t actually give you the location until you’ve already accepted. Only thing to do is cancel and lose face.
  I’ve had a rough time getting started in the custom game, 5 or 6 tries before I got a mission that more or less ran itself from terracorp (though that last ship took 30 minutes to dock for some reason). The speed upgrades the cash let me buy has put alot more in my reach though.
  The trick with “recover the ship” missions is to repair the ship before you try to return (use your suit’s repair laser on it) and, if possible, pick up some engine tuning on the way to your destination.
  The adhoc missions aren’t part of the storyline, by the way :)
  Also, whatever game type you play they have “hidden” unpiloted ships in a number of sectors including:
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  Savage Spur, Xenon Sector 101, Menelaus Frontier, Treasure Chest, The Vault
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