Yes, it's better now that losses in those sectors don't count. Still, though. Every time a convoy gathers in one of those sectors, every non-capship bot dies. Why? Because before they start moving, the bots don't protect each other. They don't fly close together, and the escorts don't escort. So you end up with every bot in a different corner of the map, alone and trying to fight off the Hive hoards. So would it be possible to change the mission so that it either

A) no longer gathers in bot-infested sectors, or
B) causes the bots to group into a convoy BEFORE the mission starts moving

Thanks

Here's some snippets of my conversation with momerath regarding this subject:

[Sat Jun 17 05:32:03 2006] ->momerath42: and ****, Latos N-14 is a BOT sector! You'd think Remley Orbital would know that! :P
[Sat Jun 17 05:32:30 2006] *momerath42* grr- yea, i had to reset my sector-type hashes again tonight
[Sat Jun 17 05:33:09 2006] *momerath42* so it's back to the bad info- but it self corrects- maybe this time i'll get that stuff snapshotted so it doesnt get blown away again
[Sat Jun 17 05:33:09 2006] ->momerath42: wouldn't it just be easier to take the "nearest" empty sector?
[Sat Jun 17 05:33:25 2006] *momerath42* it does- it just doesnt have accurate info about what's empty

[Sat Jun 17 05:35:14 2006] ->momerath42: because the only reason they're taken off the list is if the entire convoy is destroyed right?
[Sat Jun 17 05:36:14 2006] *momerath42* nah- if any of them are destroyed by an npc in the gathering sector the sector is marked not-empty
[Sat Jun 17 05:36:40 2006] ->momerath42: that's odd
[Sat Jun 17 05:36:53 2006] *momerath42* hmm- unless i commented that for some reason
[Sat Jun 17 05:37:02 2006] *momerath42* which i now vaguely remember doing
[Sat Jun 17 05:37:09 2006] ->momerath42: because I've taken a few escort missions from single stations where they went to the same sectors... where they died... >_>

As I now recall, it's commented out due to an odd bug I could only attribute to that mechanism. I'm watching the logs and manually reassigning those sectors for now, but the problem will be solved in a more satisfying way soon as part of what I need to do for the economy.

any word on when the economy is coming, or what it will entail?

Sooon(tm)...er than you expect.

...ugh, I've never managed to complete an escort mission for Tunguska because they ALWAYS start in sectors with very high-class bots