This is uncertain. The game steps at a specific rate (the physics is deterministic) but does not wait for callbacks from your AI to proceed with the game. If a specific ship hasn't replied to the last request for instructions, the game won't call it the next round. I was thinking that rather than providing the game step in the API, the simplest thing is for an AI to study the gametime and draw its own conclusions.
After playing around with it for a while, it hasn't actually made that much difference to me. I perhaps shouldn't have made the suggestion so hastily ;)