Could say a Single lieutenant, Control The Enterprise D By sitting in the Captain chair and saying, "Computer Set a course 223 Mark 65. Warp 6.5 " Or control The weapon systems? "Computer, Target the Romulan Warbird Attack Pattern Delta 7" How long Could the ship go like that
We pretty much saw it with the Stargazer, although IIRC it had been modified by Daimon Bok. Ditto the USS Vengeance a couple of movies ago. We saw Scott's hasty jerry-rigging for a crew of 5 fail in STIII.
That was in a bubble universe that was shrinking down to nothingness wherein at a minimum the computer was being altered in correspondence with that shrinkage, so that doesn't really count as a case study of what the 1701-D was capable of in the normal universe.
The Binars stole the Enterprise-D solely on computer control, and Picard got it home all alone (with Riker watching) in 11001001. Beep. Beep. beep. Engage. As mentioned above, I'd guess one person could drive the ship right up until something needed fixing. Any repair that needed more than one person, or specialized training, and you're done.
CRUSHER: Computer, are you familiar with the inhabitants of Tau Alpha C? COMPUTER: Affirmative. CRUSHER: Are any presently located on any starbase or vessel within communication distance? COMPUTER: Negative. CRUSHER: Estimated time to Tau Alpha C at warp nine point five. COMPUTER: One hundred twenty three days. CRUSHER: Lay in a new course for Tau Alpha C. And send a subspace message advising them of our arrival. COMPUTER: Acknowledged. CRUSHER: Engage. (nothing happens) Computer, did you change course? COMPUTER: State new destination or coordinates. CRUSHER: I stated it, damn it. Tau Alpha C. COMPUTER: There is no Tau Alpha C listed on current star maps. It's only after this she realises that she is the one trapped in the warp bubble, so before this she knew that the ship would be able to take her to where she needed to go due to the high level of automation of the computer.
No harm in trying, but I stand by what I said. This is no example of the ship performing on autopilot.
The ENT episode where Phlox was running the ship alone while everyone else was unconscious touched on this. Trip was showing him some part of the engine that had to be swapped out or degaussed or something regularly. Ah, here it is: I mean, the crew is obviously doing something to operate the ship on a regular basis. Otherwise you wouldn't need an M-5 to reduce the compliment down to the science and diplomatic staffs and a couple of mechanics, medics, and security people in case anything went wrong. Though, to be fair, those examples are the 22nd and 23rd centuries. By the TNG era, things are probably different. I've seen speculation that a "working day" on the Enterprise-D isn't eight hours, and one of the last TNG novels had a passing reference to ships being automated and reliable enough that they didn't need to have enough redundant crew to be fully staffed around the clock. The result would probably be ships like the Defiant and Voyager having smaller crews than older ships of the same size.
The TNG Tech Manual suggests you could fly the ship from a PADD whilst on Deck 12: Holodeck Jizzmopper's Supply Cupboard, provided you had the right command access codes.
Given most modern IRL ships are controlled by computer screens with some physical controls for steering, I wouldn't be surprised if you can get access to multiple tablets and setup a make shift bridge wherever you want just by connecting to the central server on the ship that controls the main engines & steering.
...Kirk's specific complaint to the contrary in "This Side of Paradise" could be taken in several ways consistent with the usual ease of solo piloting: 1) Kirk is not lamenting the fact that he cannot escape on his own, but the fact that the ship is useless to Starfleet as an operational asset as long as Kirk is deprived of a crew. After all, Kirk is not a man to worry much about his own fate. 2) Kirk is saying Omicron Ceti is out in the sticks and something will fail while he attempts his solo flight back to the civilization. A shorter trip would be fine. 3) Kirk just said Uhura sabotaged comms. His next comment records for posterity that flight controls are also sabotaged, precluding solo flight. And guns, etc, but he tackles the issues in his log only as they arise. Something like the above seems called for, as the inability to drive solo is inconsistent with other Trek. And with current audience expectations, but that is a lesser issue when we already have to accept that Kirk suffers from 1960s limitations in his ethics, tactical thinking and certain other tech issues besides user interfaces. Timo Saloniemi
Kirk may be able to set course away from OC3 by himself, but one wobble in the antimatter reactor and it's unlikely that he would be able to leg it down to Engineering in time...
It is just odd in context that Phlox could keep the more primitive NX-01 running solo, though. Was the task really that much simpler? For Kirk to speak in absolutes and categorically abandon all hope of reaching Starfleet on his own seems unlikely. But Kirk need not be doing that (except if it is already the spores at work, weakening his usual resolve). He might also be describing a lesser complication before making his final effort to get his crew back. If that fails, he might still be planning to set sail for home on his own, in keeping with continuity. This just never comes to pass, as the spores get him, too. Timo Saloniemi
Phlox was in basically the same situation as Kirk; the crew was unavailable, and the ship would continue doing what it had been doing until they could wake up/return and make it do something else. It's just in Phlox's case, it was going somewhere, and in Kirk's, the ship was parked in orbit. Kirk's people jumped ship without a second thought, while on the NX-01, the entire crew could take as much time as they need to rig the ship to transit the space-whatsit (just as they had for the other, smaller space-whatsit in "The Catwalk") with the absolute minimum of hands-on intervention. Kirk probably wouldn't have been stuck if the crew had been kind enough to desert via the escape pods after the ship was underway.
The writers had little to no understanding of what automation could do in Trek. Realistically, all of the maintenance and repairs Tucker did, the ship likely could have done on its own if it was designed like that. Our own automation capabilities are vast, but hardly utilized to the maximum. In Trek, which engineer wouldn't want this kind of ability for maintenance and self-repair? Roddenberry thought apparently that too much automation would have made things uninteresting... I disagree.. it would simply free up the crew to dedicate themselves to higher things... but would still be educated in how to repair and maintain things if the situation arises where its unavoidable (And plenty of such situations did)... I'm just saying that with enough time in between episodes and enough raw materials, you could repair all of the damage you accumulated. And the NX-01 was passing by a lot of star systems which were likely filled with asteroids chock full of needed raw materials the ship could pick up and stock in cargo bays so the computer could use it. And no, you wouldn't have that much more things to go wrong... the systems in question would be incredibly redundant (and most of SF technology already is)... and if situations arise where automation is badly damaged to the point it cannot do what it needs to do, then yes, you'd need to use the crew to help out with the repairs... but for maintenance, etc.? No. That's just baloney and projection of outdated methodologies onto an environment that wouldn't do things like that. Scotty was able to 'rig' the Enterprise (Constitution) to run with a handful of people. I imagine that some automation is deliberately turned off by Starfleet for the purpose of 'training junior officers, or crew members' (in what, doing monotonous tasks which the said future eliminated to begin with?). Probably superficial for the sake of preserving a hierarchical command structure... which doesn't really end up working properly again in an environment like that. Anyway, my point is that automation isn't used mainly due to the writers. From an in-universe point of view, you'd need to have some die-hard morons who long for 'no automation' days and want to keep things static... which is just damaging to your own safety in the long run. We've even seen the ECH (Doctor as an emergency command hologram) ask the computer to target and disable enemy ships on his own, which was a good example of the computer executing piloting and weapons in a better manner than most organics do... but again, little to no mention of self-repair (Which would be useful for that situation). Or perhaps the self-repair mechanism was damaged and with just ECH on board it was too difficult to keep ahead of the other problems (in which case, you'd think he would focus on self-repair first).