I haven't been able to play much of Albion, but it doesn't replace TC. None of the many plots available in TC are available in Albion, and important things (to me) like the player HQ are not present either. Although, there have been hints that they may add some small updates like that to future patches.

here's some video walkthrus that I was linked to.  VERY helpful.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=297924

Check out Egosoft's official forums as well. Every time I have an issue, question, or whatever else, I've always found the answer. The forums are well moderated and the community is one of the best around. The only divide is that there is a strange purist group there that abhors the use of mods. I couldn't imagine playing X games without some of my favorite mods to spice up the game. Maybe it's just because I'm a veteran of the series? I've seen plenty of posts like

"Post 1: Purist" - "Is this possible in game? I would LOVE to do this but can't figure out how."

"Post 2: Smart and Attractive Modder" - "It's not in vanilla, but here's a mod that allows you to do that and has all of these cool features at expand upon your idea."

"Post 3: Purist" - "No thanks, I don't want any mods."

This is also a XTC Mod.

I bought this on steam sales these last weeks, albion and X3.

Played a bit, and besides good looks, and time consuming extragavanza,

I can suggest ppl to play eve online.

You just can't fight against dead space AI without any big events taking place.

Eve online is a proper sandbox.

Nothing beats the 700men fleet fight with capital, supercapital ships and bomber gangs etc...