Yes you can smoke out the ant lair together as a team. Same also on the Black Claw scorpion quest from Junktown, and i believe The Rail Line Gang quest in Shady Sands. Don't forget the holotape delivery quest from Necropolis to Gecko and back (you get 3000 xp for that).
Short of quests, you can make it your own personal mission to explore some places: caves to find rare items on the ground, fight robots in Glow, fight robots in Sierra, explore Mariposa (easy), some enemy in Toxic Caves, Ghost Farm underground has a tiny mine, get eparts and chemical components from Waterworks, too many powerful mutants at Ares, etc.