And... and the player gets to be "The Third Wheel"! :-D
*ba dum tish*
One of my favorite things about space combat sims was the immense sense of scale they could give, even back in the 90's. That's underscored by my favorite part of X-Wing Alliance, which is the mission where you have to pick up your uncannily hot sister from an asteroid base, you hyperspace in and boom, there's the goddamn Executor (the Super Star Destroyer) filling half the bloody screen and you have to fly its entire length (albeit from a relatively safe distance) and reach the base.
In the end, the mission itself is nothing particularly special; fly in, fending off a few fighters, sit on the base while your sister packs up all her makeup and girly things and fend off more fighters during which, then fly out with more of the same. You never really got the impression of "holy mother of God that's a giant ship and a lot of fighters coming after me", but of course, you wouldn't know that on your first trip through, so you're half expecting the Executor to at any point notice the fly-like transport off to its starboard, then reach out and swat you away.
Nowadays I know what to expect from the scenario, so I spend most of the time flying the length of the ship in thoughts about how long my droid buddy "Emkay" would last if I jettisoned him towards the ship, solving both my curiosity and an annoyance at once.
So what I'm saying is "big ass ships that let us appreciate their scale", which is of course, a rather tall order. Also no plucky droid buddies.