I ahve recently watched some videos about ES2 and the space battles visuals are awesome:). That said, i really hope the potenitial here will not be wasted. I like tactical battles, but im absolutely ok with a hands off, give orders then watch solution of ES2, as long as its well done.

Whats critical imho is for the orders to be very important, logical and not tottaly random. Players must feel they make a big change by issuing orders and that it gots some depth, there is a reasoning behind it. In ES1 it was in to big part imho random if you hit the right card to counter your enemy.  Ideally the visuals should provide feedback what you did right waht wrong both in ship design and orders. For example if you got to little pd, on your ships ,if you made a big error by ordering fighters to attack instead of guardind your capital ships, if standing off with your battlehips was a good or bad decision...It woudl be awesome , tough i understand this last ones are on the difficult side:).So if at least part of it  is achieved,  imho the visuals will be watched with a sense of accomplishement and it will work. 

Waiting impatiently the full game, the videos look awesome:)