The combat is entirely automated. You do not get to order your ships around on some board and give orders to attack what first. The game provides a "Battleviewer" to show you how a battle was calculated. It is the visual reenactment of all the number crunching that gets done in the background.

It's more like a little movie of a battle than anything else.

The AI determines the highest threat ship in the opponent's fleet and attacks it until it is destroyed, moving on then to lower threat ships until one side or another is destroyed.

The ships fly around a bit, the camera pans and shifts to give you the feeling of motion in the battle. Ships will pass each other as they rake one another with missles and lasers. It's not very fast-paced, but it still looks cool. Imagine how a naval battle progresses and you have some idea.

Also, you can view the movie multiple times, at different speeds, and from different camera angles.

now that would be a nice feature specially if you get battles with tons of fighters and a really nice graphic card that makes everything look nice