This wasn’t directed at “GMs need to make opportunities for everyone”, particularly since GMs are busy running the actual mission. The way that roleplaying works once it grows beyond the standard 4-7 at a table in real life, everyone needs to help take ownership of their interests. This is easier when player characters are not arranged in a somewhat strict hierarchy as we are in the TSN, but it’s still by no means impossible to keep RP quality in mind as well as quantity.
Following your example, none of those are roleplay opportunities that feed me as a player since to me (and this is all strictly from the way that I operate) those are all tasks that can be acknowledged and largely handled by saying “Yep, will do skipper.” It does increase the amount of RP going on, it may help contribute to the atmosphere, but it doesn’t challenge me creatively. I fully expect someone might enjoy that, and for those people who enjoy that introduction to the RP then that is how they should be engaged because that’s what engages them. Nor am I advocating that everyone necessarily complete an official form which states the kind of RP they enjoy and that everyone receive their proportional allotment of RP time per shift (though this does approach my ideal in many ways), because we don’t need to go from 0 to 60 immediately and that does take a lot of time and effort.
If captains and crews did have a quick talk about what they enjoy, I think that would go a long way to helping. I’ve referenced this before, but one of my favorite in character moments was debating military jurisprudence with Matsiyan at the time when the Zolmari faction was in its infancy. It was a conversation, it was a dialog, and even if it didn’t change anything (because I couldn’t convince him) it felt like it had stakes. It felt like it mattered, and it challenged me. Not only that, but it challenged me in a way that had no bearing on my technical proficiency with the Artemis game engine.
Even if I didn’t get that every session, I’d be happy if I had something like that even once every few shifts. And there – that’s RP that’s happening. And not only is it happening, it’s been referenced since then so it built a continuity thread which further reinforced in character RP, and it was memorable and directly related to the way that I enjoy RP.
Not everything relates to what I want though, and I also understand that. I am aware that some people actually enjoy flying in formation and feel that reinforces their RP experience. And that’s great. It’s not a major inconvenience for me to feed their preferences, and that goes for formation flying, for calling strategies with combat order, for referencing rank and treating my direct superior differently than I do my general superiors which differs from how I interact with my peers and all that differs how I interact with my juniors.
In summary: There is not one path to roleplay and I think we would have more willingness to participate if there were more varied opportunities in addition to simply more opportunities. And to that end, we need to be willing to cooperate, collaborate, and actively try to present roleplay opportunities for those around us even if they are not our preferences. And that we are all responsible for trying, regardless of in character rank or community status because out of character we all matter equally. Especially newbies and cadets.