Mount and Blade Warband had some mods that allowed you to be a soldier in another lords army (normally you would lead an army). It was fun to fight as peasant. But sometimes you would simply have to wait for 30-45min at maximum time acceleration, until at least
something of interest happened.
What you propose requires very detailed and engaging game mechanics for all the different jobs to be interesting (what SC is trying to do).
When you just push a button to activate autopilot and then click on time acceleration until it's complete then it's extremely boring for the majority of time - in short an extremely gimmicky feature.
Doesn't that pretty much sum up every X3:AP play through that doesn't involve Stock Exchange shenanigans?
What the OP mentions, i would say that X3:Reunion gameplay sums it up prettymuch. -> no overpowered mission payout of TC. Earning your first Trader or even M3 was pretty time consuming (when starting with M4).
If you want to earn your ship you could as well just say that the ship you fly is rented and whatever you earn flying it flows as percentage into the coffers of whoever gave it to you, to pay for the ship + extras. The base concept in a nut shell is that you start in debt instead of in the positive/ as free creature.
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X-Tended TC Mod Team Veteran.
Modeller of X3AP Split Acinonyx, Split Drake, Argon Lotan, Teladi Tern. My current work: