Incorporating Story Into a Sandbox

I don't like the story as presented so far in SE2. The characters are unlikeable, unrelatable, everything feels so forced, including the mechanical sense of being forced to sit through a cutscene and follow prescribed quests in order to unlock parts. Colonization similarly is just a matter of "make progress bar go up" and feels as rewarding as the apparent lack of effort put into making it interesting or engaging.

Many other games have tried adding a big overarching story to a sandbox game, and most of the time it has been a complete disaster and serves as merely a distraction from the real game of doing side quests or exploring off the beaten path finding hidden treasures or exploits.

I would humbly, but firmly suggest avoiding a big cinematic story, especially a linear one delivered primarily through cutscenes. If you feel you must add a story, please work and focus more on building likeable characters, and make any series of missions or quests optional side quests that are cohesive, give both the player and NPCs strong and easily understandable motivations for their requests/actions, and don't interrupt the sandbox experience of faffing about trying not to crash and burn after a series of unfortunate events.

Non-linear questing allows the ability to reward the player with unique items that are much more interesting and memorable than "your colonization progress went up 5%". Imagine if for example after you helped a local warehouse move some boxes around into the warehouse they gave you a unique uncraftable cargo container that held 10% more items with no additional weight. You don't need a new model or assets, just a configuration setting that sets it apart and you instantly have a physical, memorable, relevant reward and keepsake that can be incorporated into your builds.

This is the type of "story" I want. I don't want cutscenes. I don't want unlikeable characters I hate that I am forced to play as. I want stories that come from emergent gameplay and interesting little setpieces. Many of the existing encounters in SE 1 have interesting twists and turns -- please expand upon the things that work well, and not force awkward hamfisted garbage down the throats of players who ostensibly want a spaceship survival crafting sandbox.