Good and fun if they can add ai that can work without a ton of player micro. Macro is fine, but even then some players I think would prefer the option of adding an overseer npc of some sort to manage the player's base/ship automatically or perhaps within some parameters set up by the player initially.

What is fun and meaningful depends on the player. Options and choices that impact the levels of complexity can only be a good thing. If players choose and finds it entertaining they can dive deeper into the mechanics of the npc management.

It would be nice if the game had a random npc personality generator. It could add quirks and traits etc. It makes some npcs rare and valuable to find and keep.