For sure, the more players - the more fun.
If we would ever get enough players we could even reate a bunch of out-of-game institutions, like ship design bureau or a secret police or whatever. And a parliament for republics for sure. Regarding combat slow-downs I had in mind the following scheme:
Space Master, while carrying out orders encounters a potentially hostile contact.
He contacts the first player officer in the relevant chain of command (hopefully the S.O. of the Tast Group, but it may be a passanger too
) and asks what to do about it.
The contacted officer may chose to notify the higher command or he might chose to act himself.
In the first scenario there will be a major discussion and forum flame about the possible approaches.
In the second scenario officer describes his actions and Space Master tries to follow them as close as he can. If something new happens or the proposed strategy really backfires - it is up to Space Master whether to contact officer again and let him reconsider or not (RP element of human factor).
This way skirmishes will not become an endless chat between player and Space Master, but player will still retain some form of control (the more situations you cover in your plan - the more predictable actions of Space Master will be.)
Gary, can you share a link to that thread? maybe we could just join in? why is the game on hold? any major forces are at hand? I think it would be pretty easy to change a Space Master in my scenario, if old one becomes slow to responce. and If player does not pay much attantion - no big deal, he is just another NPC officer until he is back. Following orders, doing boring stuff...