What sort of pre-battle orders can be issued?
As supreme space-admiral, you don’t get your hands dirty during the battle, but you give instructions to your underlings in charge of each ship. You can order them to fight to the last man, or retreat if damage exceeds a certain level. You can give them different ranges to engage the three classes of enemy ship, you can also add further AI behaviors such as “protect this ship” or “stay in formation relative to this ship”. You can also issue targeting preferences such as ‘vulture’ which encourages that ship to open fire on enemy ships that are already damaged or ‘co-operative’ which encourages them to group their fire onto single targets. Your AI captains will do their best (within reason) to follow your orders during the battle.
