Unfortunately, not as far as random missions (though I don't know if there are any like that in the campaign - there may be some).

It's one of the few big criticisms of the game. There may be hope for a patch or addon adding this later.

From what ive heard, NO. But they do have base destroy missions when you get to a higher level. One thing people say to do is use your "imagination" if you want to escort a ship somewhere, get into formation with it and travel with it to its destination. You dont need trade missions to do trade runs. Just take some cargo from one place to another. Its no different than getting a mission to do so.

*If you have a cat and a dog in the same house, will that be a problem? Of course not, you might just have solved world hunger*

That's true and a good point. It *IS* Freelancer, so you can do trading yourself, you can help forces who are being attacked yourself, and you can explore looking for derelict ships to loot yourself. So it's not THAT bad - it'd just be nice if there were missions like that too (say, with a big bonus for a cargo run).

what i am and others are trying to point out is the trade missions that this game is lacking from the random missions ie P1 P2 had these, and yes you can buy your own goods and ship them to where ever to sell it but it doesn't feel the same. Thats you begin a merchant, going where ever you wanted to go by what ever waypoint you like.
The missions on the other hand is NPC paying you bigtime to transport stuff that will be long and dangerous and you have no real control of how to flay there, its all preset from NPC thats paying you for the job.
I mean sure you can escort any old ship flaying along in FL but there not going to pay you for it, and its like your pretending to do something that should have been apart of the game release. rofl its almost like saying pretend your superman flying by just laying on your bed and holding your arms out in front of you.
The feeling that i get from playing P1 and P2 missions and winning is a job welldone. Maybe its just me but FL seem to lost the feel of a chris Roberts game in terms of the missions.
Other areas of the game like exploration is great fun and will be looking forward to the mission mods that i'm sure someone will make or maybe expanion pack.

I see what you're saying about pretending. Hopefully Digital Anvil is taking notice. I think that's probably the biggest complaint of the game for virtually every review and even the posts on here (including mine). As I said in the review (of the demo) I posted a few days ago, this is the one thing that keeps the game from being near-perfect (I say near since I don't think any game will ever achieve perfection). I don't think it ruins the game, but it does limit it more.

Edited by - guptasa1 on 09-03-2003 07:55:31

LOL Gunblade. You'll make more money hauling stuff on your own that with convoy and escort missions (of course more random missions are a good thing).

the destroy base missions aren't really destroy base missions.., you'll see what i mean when you play the game.

Wandering about in the Demo, I would occassionally hitch a ride on the back of a Spa and Cruise convoy, hoping to ingratiate myself with the faction... and get free vacations.

Earlier today, I decided to take a short break from the story and see if I could make a "big score" on a trade mission, so I had a clydesdale and was going back through a lane which usually had bad scary people in it. So I loitered by the gate and joined up with a large transport going the same way. And we did get jumped by bad guys. Unfortunately, I was in formation with the transport, who tried to bolt, got knocked off kilter from the trade line, tried to go to cruise, got slowed by a disruptor, etc, for about 15 minutes, while I was trying to familiarize myself with turret mode and dropping countermeasured and mines until I ran out. I think we ended up missing the last three trade rings.

note to self: only hook up with escorted convoys.

ER