It'll definitely be important to allow that to be overridden (either by just flagging a station "does the right thing" or by building some AIs to fill in) so the game is usable with fewer than the required number of players. But that can come later (last I checked, most bridge simulators don't have that so plenty of time to get around to it).

Regarding engines: A random tidbit I picked up about nuclear submarines is that the reactors actually require quite a bit of manual tuning and observation. This was intentional: especially back in the day of the first nuclear subs, automation hardware would have been bulky and (spacewise) expensive, and the alternative was to leave the systems manually-tuned and train sailors to do the job. From a safety perspective, one of course chooses automation... But war has a different safety perspective, and the great thing about a sailor is that when they aren't busy running the reactor they can do something else. They can also react to a captain's needs and get creative in a way that an automated system can't (a major concern for the design was that a captain could be hamstrung in a sea battle trying to get the sub to do something that the safety interlocks disallowed).

That aspect of real vessels, that it's possible to "redline" them and run them in a configuration that is temporarily viable but risks damage or makes them more vulnerable in some other way, is an interesting piece to play with in a game environment as a risk players can choose to take.

Yeah, the intention is the station count is adaptive. You choose the number of players and the ship you'll play with, and it automatically generates an appropriate station configuration.

So if you have fewer players, you can play on a smaller ship that doesn't have any non-player crew members. Or, conversely, a large group will have additional stations to spread the work out a little bit.

Hopefully everything feels meaningful and impactful at every crew and ship size and nothing feels like busywork.

That is so cool. Also makes the shenanigans Scotty pulls a lot more… er… realistic? Like, it’s cool that engineers have some wiggle room like what’s depicted.