Oh, by the by - you'll likely want to look into the freeware port of SC2 as well.

That's what I did, as I wasn't quite sure I wanted to pay for it, unknowingly of whether the game would fit my criterias.
Thanks for pointing it out though!

On second thought, this isn't quite the type of game I was after. The crew management component is merely using a number. Crew is considered a metric of survivability basically, and you're not exactly managing them into efficient positions, etc.

I've played quite a bit of Artemis. It sucks. After the first hour, there is no challenge left. You start to just do ridiculous things to come up with harder things to do.

OK, this is what sprung to mind:

FTL (mentioned previously) - indie game about ship and crew management, but mostly combat

Artemis (also mentioned previously) - why control a virtual crew when you could invite five real friends round to play?

Starflight - classic space exploration

Elite II - explore, trade, fight, and learn why realistic space physics in games is a bad idea! I recommend the JJFFE bug fixed version of Frontier: First Encounters

Starfleet Command - tactical starship combat, more about maneuvers and power management than crew but it certainly has depth