To make escorts a bit more interesting, why not add NPC pirates to some of the escort missions? Of course, the player defending the convoy will have to have NPC allies. And also, there should be missions where players can help a group of NPC pirate bots attack and loot from a convoy.

"Of course, the player defending the convoy will have to have NPC allies."

Actually, most escorts already come with NPC defenders as well. They just don't join the group, so you might not notice them as often. If you pay attention though you'll notice that there are usually some vultures, centurions, or warthogs that follow the convoy around, unless it's a very small convoy. If you abort the mission and attack the convoy, those defenders will start attacking you. (If you attack the convoy without aborting, they assume it was an accident and ignore you, until you've killed enough ships to be kicked out of the mission.)

+1, unrats!

+1 to unrats (NPCs or BOTs) as allways, even if simply randomized attackers when you take convoys...

+1 to unrats in grey space.

Also, fix the darn Ion Storms so they dont use the sector origin point as the jump out. A fixed randomized-at-storm-creation exit point would work better. With it using the sector origin as it does now, jumps out of a storm are often so quick (less than 2000m to the exit) that hive bots dont have a chance to attack you unless your convoy is slow from a capship.