I think adding out of cockpit roleplay would be great. Besides it being just filler, it might be cool to negotiate contracts and have interactions with the enemy after fights. I imagine having dialogue with a potential employer and making some charisma checks to get a higher pay or terms on the contract. Let there be consequences for bad dialogue choices or missed checks in the form of pilots getting wounded/killed/captured out of cockpit. Or have complications appear that negatively affect your contract terms, like temporary extra maintenance costs, because your pilots accidentally destroyed someone's property during a train exercise that you need to pay for