So I stole 2 ships yesterday and find it to be lots of fun.
I learned some important things and thought I'd share.
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When you steal a ship, you have to register it which costs about 9.6k. Apparently you can't sell the ships for much more than that, but I haven't tried yet.
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If you sit in the pilot seat of the ship, you'll see a message about potentially making it your home ship if you take off. If you do not take off in it and just leave, it does not become one of your ships and will disappear if you leave the planet.
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if there are ecliptic mercs nearby, attempt to steal the ship before killing them. Sometimes you can, sometimes you cannot. If you kill the mercs, the ship takes off.
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If the ship is sitting there, it may be empty and ripe for the taking. If there's a crew aboard, there may be something you can do (chat with the captain and get something), but most likely you'll piss off your companion if you just "take care" of them.
Yeah you can hire NPC pilots and crew in X4 Foundations, you can even ride along on the shipping/mining routes. It's a complicated game but I'd love to see some of the mechanics in a game like Starfield or Elite Dangerous.