Ending combat

[Suicide Junkie]

Alneyan said:
You cannot stop a tactical combat once it has started, nor go into strategic mode. However, you can let the computer fight in your stead (by switching on the auto button), and there are a few options to remove some animations. In the Options screen, remove the tick on "Animate ship movement in combat" and tick "Fast Tactical Combat", and it should speed up the battles.

Also, the best way to speed it up is to move your view to an unoccupied corner of the map.
Battle goes MUCH MUCH faster when the game dosen't have to render the weapons, shields and ship movements for you to watch.