I just took a Trade Guild mission while in Jallik. I chose Special delivery. It told me that a mission to Itan G4 would be 4 jumps, while a mission to Artana Aquilus would be 7 jumps. Hmm.

I noticed that too- though in my case, it was a pathing problem where the route builder for a path from Arta Calestis to Latos was via Ukari in the trade guild mission list, but the nav path it made went through Dau and Azek instead. This actually seems to be a chronic pathing problem through UIT space- it will consistently path through Dau and Azek when Ukari offers a shorter route.

someone said they designed it to maximize the number of 'nation' systems you go thru, to keep n00bs from grayspacing i guess?

Ananzi is correct. The path finding will avoid crossing nation boundaries or traveling through gray space if it can help it. So it may be that the route it's plotting is longer than what you would plot on your own... or maybe I screwed something up. :) I'll double-check!

no one said you had to take the path plotted by the computer. however I think noobs would be more upset if they were sent throught gray space for their trade missions.

A player with level 3 trade and up should be able to evaluate the route and plot any changes as needed (i.e. around known ion storms).

Do timed missions start the moment you accept or on leaving the station? I'd like to have time to outfit a ship and plot a course. Now I do all that before accepting the mission but it feels awkward. It should probably start when you leave the station because my simple trick is available.

-Oort Cloudburst

Yup, that'll be in the new release (tonight probably).