In the starwolves base mothership there seems to be space for Six pilots and their spacecraft. Two of these positions are taken by default by the Player (leader of the starwolves) and Ace (friend and wingman to the leader) this leaves four slots in the hanger bay open. However I have tried several times to dock in trade stations to access the Jobs tab that becomes available in the shop menu. there are pilots and missions available there. However every time I've tried to accept a mission or hire a group of pilots the game crashes... anyone else has this problem? is there any way to hire pilots other than the main two default ones

I know this is a very late reply, but thought I'd leave it here anyways, in the event others want to know. Regarding your crashes, I can only say that it is well known that SW2 is pretty buggy. That said, I had a lot of problems with it on my older XP computer, but recently when I decided to download it again, and try it on my new rig with 16GB Ram, an Nvidia GTX 1080, and an i5, and it runs rather well. Have only had perhaps 3 or 4 CTD's, and once in a while, the known frustrating problem of being unable to undock from a station. Most times, that is solved by directing the mothership to leave the station on a route perpendicular to the station first, then choosing your ultimate destination after it has cleared the station successfully....once in a blue moon however, I have had to ctrl-alt-del out to reload the game, because no matter what I did, I could not undock my ship. That all said, it seems clear that SW2 is poorly optimized, and although it is supposed to run on older systems (by today's standards), it really does/and did not. If you have an older gaming rig, and update sometime, I suggest trying the game again, as it may be much easier to play. SW1 and SW3 ran fine on my old XP rig, but SW2 had serious problems...that is why most folks suggest it be skipped when playing the series. A newer more modern gaming machine does seem to help a lot though, at least from my experience.

Regarding the pilots/mercenaries available at the stations...they are basically just mercenaries (along with their own ships) you can hire to accompany you on your missions. They are controllable by you (to some extent), but they do not/are unable to dock on your mothership, and are not part of your "crew". The slots you see available on your mothership are there for characters/pilots you meet during the game campaign, and they join your team. After joining you, they show up in your crew slots on your ship, and you can move them around to different ships you acquire, and upgrade them with experience points just as you would your Hero and Ace.