“TMC Connection Error” was due to me not installing drivers correctly. Ignoring anything’s possible if you edit pins_BTT_OCTOPUS_V1_common.h… For stock LR3, the drivers should be installed next to each other, no gaps (the mistake I made). So, Driver0 thru to Driver4 should be installed. For my Octopus board, the drivers are very a tight fit (drivers are too wide for the pin headers with zero gap between the drivers). Worked around by inserting and pressing all drivers down at same time.
Output from M119 and M122 TMC Debugging helped me troubleshoot, found thanks to this and this topic.
Flashed ESP32U via Platform IO with ESP3D compiled to 32 bit. Can connect to ESP3D AP from laptop, but ESP3D terminal commands are not being processed by Marlin. Still debugging, guessing this is related to Marlin 2.0.9.5 being used instead of the new version that Ryan recommended in the Headless SKR thread. Planning to update my marlin_2.1.1_515 snapshot with Octopus related edits folks here applied to 2.0.9.5 so I can have it all 
If someone’s done this already, please let me know…