Just started playing this, enjoying it quite a lot, anyone noticed the similarity between this game and Frontier Elite 2. Rank and reputation progression, time acceleration, procedural missions, optional story missions, (LIke FIrst Encounters, which is FE2 with added optional stories). Elite in the title, frontier name checked in the bulletin board which is where I was tipped off by the attached image. BBS options text almost a direct lift from frontier.

Not having a go, I think it's a pretty cool idea to transplant the game logic to this setting. I'm wondering though, this game has the missions and story missions but is there an equivalant to things like trading, pirating, bounty hunting and mining, can you make money by randomly breaking into computers and stealing data or is it just the BBS missions?

That is a very valid observation, Uplink is full of mostly subtle pop culture references and it is almost a given that the small development team has played Elite at some point in their lives.

I can think of at least one set of files you can steal from a specific server which is not part of a mission nor is it suggested or hinted at in the game. Some time after copying those files, an anonymous source will offer money for you to upload them to their server.

I guess you could accidentally stumble upon loaded bank accounts to empty, though beware that bank security is pretty time consuming to crack and they are very quick to track you down so once you are done you need to be very quick covering your tracks. It is easier to find these bank accounts during the course of certain missions where they ask you to track big money transfers though.

For the most part I think the free roaming parts of the game are mostly fluff and easter eggs. There isn't much gainful stuff you can do outside of the missions.