See also: story lines summary page.

X4 does not have a “main quest” in the same sense as other games, but the term is often used in discussion forums so is adopted here for consistency.

The “main quest” (or “main plot” or “main storyline”) is generally understood to be the story line involving the Player Headquarters station. This station is a unique installation the player discovers in the course of the early game.

Beyond discovering the player HQ station and getting access to research options, there isn’t much additional story that continues with developing the HQ. There are additional events that can happen that involve the station or resident scientist as parts of the story, but there’s no central unifying “Main Quest” that develops through the game and leads to a grand conclusion. X4 is a “do what you want” sandbox game, and players will need to find their own motivations and goals to serve as their own personal “main quest.”

Player HQ

The headquarters station has some unique attributes:

• It has a unique appearance (purely cosmetic)
• It has a research lab
• It has an office with inventory item storage
• Can (eventually) be relocated/moved, as a result of advanced research

In all other respects, the “HQ” station is… just a station. It has connection points where you can build and connect more station modules, can have storage/docks/factories, can have defense or not, needs a station manager assigned, can have trade ships assigned to work for it, etc.

Many players choose to make the HQ station a frequently visited place where they spend time, but other than access to the item storage there’s rarely any need to actually visit the station beyond personal preference.

Research

The primary benefit of the player HQ is that is has a research lab with a resident scientist who can undertake various research projects on your behalf. These projects are useful for every player, and every player should pursue them.

Players commonly speak of “doing research” but it’s helpful to note that the player only delivers materials for research projects. It’s the resident scientist that does the actual work. Your job as a player is get the materials needed and see they’re delivered.

Other than not being able to do research, ignoring the “main” story line will have no impact on the game.

The one exception is that some other story lines require access to a particular person who appears at the player HQ. If you never discover the HQ, that person cannot appear, and will not therefore be able to help you start some story lines.

Note that to access any of the research options at the player HQ, you’ll need at least a dock and a Container storage module built at the station. Later, for some projects, you’ll also need Solid storage and perhaps expanded Container storage.

Tip: When starting the game, it can be difficult to find builder ships to hire to do this construction. Placing a few advanced satellites near gates in busy nearby sectors can help you locate available ships. Setting an alert (see <>) can also help.

Locating the player HQ

The player HQ station used to always appear in Grand Exchange in Teladi space. Depending on which game start you choose, this is sometimes still the place where the station eventually appears. [The Terran Cadet and Pioneer starts still follow this path.]

Starting with the Kingdom End expansion that added the Boron faction, most game starts have the player HQ station appear in Heretics End. Simply flying into the sector (as pilot or passenger on a ship) will trigger a relevant event. You may also be directed there by a hit you get while scanning station leaks, if you do this before discovering Heretic for yourself.

Main story events

As noted above, you can view everything that happens after the station is discovered as separate little story lines, rather than a “continuation” of the player HQ discovery line. Maybe better to say that the player HQ and it’s resident scientist are involved at various points in other story missions. There’s a group of missions that eventually lead to the ability to do terraforming, for instance; this sequence of events does involve the HQ station at the start (and later at the end), so some consider them a continuation of a main quest, some consider them an optional, independent set of missions that happen to involve some interactions at the HQ.

In any case, when relevant events are happening, you will see them listed as missions at the top of your accepted missions screen, and generally receive a communication about them.

Those events are in all cases things that you can choose to pursue or not, depending on your interest. If you never do anything with the HQ beyond using it for research, nothing much will be different in your game. The options to pursue terraforming, for instance, will always be there and you could choose to pursue it at any time (or never).

Hatikvah tie-in

There is one important exception to the comments above: the Hatikvah story line leads to an NPC moving to become a permanent resident at your HQ station (joining the resident scientist).

This person is important.

This person acts as an initiation point for a few of the other available game story lines.

Thus, you should always complete the Hatikvah story missions, regardless of what start you pursue (even starts in far-off Terran space). You don’t have to do it immediately, or on any particular schedule, but you should make sure to always get to it sooner or later.

Continuation

Most discussions refer to some follow-on missions as a continuation of this “Main/HQ Story”, though they’re not required and not really related to the HQ itself directly.

See the Segaris Terraforming story line for this.