See it this way: the captain of a RL battleship does not use a joystick to steer his boat. He issues commands to his navigator.
In space, orbital mechanics can be counterintuitive (or as Larry Niven put it: “East takes you out, out takes you west, west takes you in, in takes you east”) and so our ships have basic movements automated by computer, and overal strategy (align, orbit, keep range, etc…) decided by the pilot.