Not enough experience points

It's been a while, but aren't we technically still in a mission while free roaming? Remember those "You're about to travel long distance, skip directly to destination (Y/N)?" questions? Picking "no" is when you fly around manually and most players use this time to grind - technically isn't it still during a quest?

There are a few instances where you receive a "free time" mission, but the moment you fly to another system you usually get the next mission notice (except that you can delay getting there as long as you like, similar to above), so I wonder whether this also counts as not being in a mission, or not.

The game gives you unlimited save slots, I don't like "auto" saves. I'd rather have the option to save before you make a decision - like eroge have been doing for years.