A sequel to X3 that does not suck.
I'll second this! X Rebirth was a giant steaming pile.
Only one ship to fly? A story mode that is extremely easy, until it becomes practically impossible? (Thinking of the "build a space station" mission, it was very difficult to buy the supplies you needed if you didn't stockpile them before you knew you needed them) Having to wander stations at random to hire crew? An all new UI that was actually harder to use than the crappy old UI? The game had all this and more.
X Rebirth only got rather fun after I put like 50 mods on it. But even with all good mods available, it's not a worthy sequel to X3. However, I did like the advancements Egosoft made in the way they tell the story and all the encyclopedia videos and all that.
I've said this multiple times but "I got what they were trying to aim for", but of course they missed it horrendously. I'm seriously hoping the next X will mix the best of the amazing X series, along with the best of the X:R (the feeling/atmosphere). For some reason, I felt much more immersed in X:R than older X games, and I think it's because of the scale of things, and how "solid" big ships feel - in older X games, it felt like they were hollow or something. The way they moved and behaved was incredibly awkward. X:R is awkward too, but the 'feeling' it gives is a step in the right direction.
Big hopes for X4!
And on that note, again I've felt the eternal itch for a First Person-4X-RPG of sorts. Think a mix of the good parts of Pulsar: The Lost Colony [basically multiplayer first-person FTL] with the good parts of Starbound.
I guess another way to put it is a singleplayer non-bad Hazeron that has optional multiplayer.
It sucks that I have such an itch, because that's basically Dwarf Fortress in Space, except the Adventure mode has you being captain (or whatever) inside whatever spaceship you want, and it also allows you to build stuff or explore stuff. This would be extremely niche..
I'm kinda hoping Starsector or Empyrion will take a bit of this direction, even if it require mods.
The whole idea is still a bit nebulous in my mind, but I think Pulsar [or Icarus Starship Command Simulator] mixed with a dash of sandbox city-building/colonyzing (therefore a dash of Hazeron) is the closest I can describe.
I discovered and started playing
Icarus Starship Command Simulator and it's scratching the FTL-in-first-person part a bit. If you like space games and FTL and don't know about that one, go play it. Now. And don't mind the 100% CPU-bound engine with stupid resolution.
And tell people to make more games like that!
PS: This game I'm thinking also requires a good amount of
Prospector on it, of course.