I have finished deploying ships part of the tutorial but cannot for the life of me figure out how to actually start combat. I don’t see any buttons to hit other than return to menu and the manual is worthless. If anyone could help I would appreciate it.
Welcome to the Forums 
Based on your description, I am wondering if the deployment screen is too big for your monitor.
When you deploy your fleet, it should look something like this.
Then you have this button in the lower right to start the fight.