This could be idiot stoned rambling but I'm imagining a player captain character interacting with his npc crew. In this case aboard a Carrack. It is a dialogue system using the ships intercom. The intercom menu pops up with a list of stations and crew manning them and from there you choose which order to give. The order is then voiced in game just like in the Aquila commercial and the crew member responds based on their ability to perform said task.
Ex:
Captain: "Engineering, we need more power to thrusters!"
Engineer: "I don't recommend it boss, power core is already overheating."
Captain is then given the choice to take the engineers advice or not and the npc engineer is then given the choice to follow that order based on loyalty, then success is based on npc's skill, etc etc., which of course resembles the carrack exploration game.
Really hoping the gameplay becomes something like this.
I'm also hoping that npc's are smarter than fly from points A to B bots. If I hire a pilot in the Tayak system, I'll expect him to know his way around that region of space. He'll know of jump points other pilots don't, he'll know of locations other pilots don't etc etc. I also think they'll be able to perform evasive and combat maneuvers, quality of which all depends on skill of course.