
There is trading of commodities between systems. You can upgrade your ships with new weapons and armor systems that you unlock through playing or purchase from certain locations(think pirate outpost with stolen tech but if you work for the government you can gain it in their storyline). Different ships you acquire either by purchasing, gaining through the storyline with a specific government or faction, or piracy(literally) with different cargo capacity and weapon systems. Different factions, governments to ally to. There is also an even newer title inspired by the EV series and is excellent with a bit of a modern touch to the graphics called Endless Sky(it's free).

It was first created for the Mac platform in 1996 but the newest iteration, Escape Velocity: Nova is available for Windows.

An older title called Escape Velocity has almost all of that except for classes.
