It's been a while since I've been on the Discovery forums/servers (so long that I forgot my old login details - I remember that I was eagerly awaiting 48.6), and it's great to see the community still going quite strongly.
I've played for a few hours on the official server and made myself a couple of characters, though I have noticed there doesn't seem to be as many people on the servers as there used to be. Hopefully this is just a temporary thing whilst the devs sort out the server issues, as Freelancer in my opinion is still such a great game.
One question I did wish to throw out to you all, but I was wondering how to actually join a trading faction such as Ageira or Samura etc. I'd like to play a character whom is a dedicated trader with a 5K cargo ship and was wondering how the best way to go about applying for a faction to start with their ID, better starting ship etc.