>>716471171
You'll have to do a lot of management at the start to get things set up before you can just sit around for a while and watch stupid things happen. And depending on what incidents happen, you'll have to give them orders anyway. You can set things up so that they'll make sure to have enough food, but you'll need to designate where farms are, what's being grown, and tell them to go hunt. If someone randomly joins, you'll have to make a place for them to sleep if you didn't already build extra space, because they won't construct any structures or furniture without being told to do so. In the case of enemies attacking, while they'll automatically fight back if enemies are in sight if they're set to, if you want them to prepare a defensive line or something you'll have to step in and assume command, though there's probably a mod to make it more automatic.
But once a colony is well-established, you can mostly just sit around and see what happens. You just have to keep in mind that a lot of more active actions like harvesting organs from prisoners, limb replacement surgery, and other things that aren't going to be everyday procedure will need your input.