Is there a reason for the difficulty spike or what?
I took a few average risk missions last time i played and i can't even get to either one of them without getting ambushed and killed almost instantly. What the hell?

Most of my weapons is MK2 and i have an ok deflector. But i can't go anywhere without getting threat level high ambush and a swarm of dreadnoughts with 7 missile banks, 5 bombers and 5 fighters attacking me. And i can't defend against this much firepower.

I thought the game is balanced. Why is this happening?

Which system are you in - jumping to new sectors means that you're more likely to be ambushed. If your still in the first system, open the radial menu ( Y with Xbox controller) to see who is hostile towards you. When I first started playing, the Korians would always intercept me and I would have to run. If you can't beat them, just turn away, deflector on and jump away.

if you have extra cash
you could jump to the next system and hit up the shops for better parts/ships

when it comes to doing missions you have to get a feel for
the enemy ships each type of opponent groups have to offer
and figure out ways to deal with them
eg if a type of enemy ususlly has hordes of fighters set your turrets to target fighters only

keep in mind you can kill off some of the enemy then retreat until they turn back and then go back and kill some more retreating again before you take any/much damage

at lest i dont remember the enemies respawning their lost numbers
unless you land on a station or warp to another system

Some missions are far easier with a small faster ship...

Well, that's the thing, i'm stuck... :/

I'm still in the first system and i'm trying to save up money for a Barracuda, but i can't even do missions cause i always get ambushed and killed before i can even run. And this happened suddenly, And since i can't do missions, i can't get any money.

Sometimes i can more or less deal with an ambush but after the fight i have like 20% hull left and i have to get to a station to do repairs, and after i do i get ambushed again. And if i attempt a mission before i repair, i'm dead anyway...

Red devils are hostile to me, and Korians don't like me much either, both ambush me, but the red devils have a dreadnought, 3-4 large ships, 5 bombers and fighters... I mean, what the hell? I have me and Skiza, how am i supposed to defend against that, i can't even outrun them...

Do i need to upgrade something on my ship? I have Tachyon canons on turrets and broadsides, a mining laser and a pretty good warp drive (the fastest you can get in the first system).

Do i upgrade the shields, the hull or speed? I have like 20k money, i can probably buy an upgrade, but i don't see how it'll help me, those thugs really hate me lol.

have you tried trading or mining to make the money to upgrade

also is average difficulty missions are this bad maybe try sticking to low/very low missions
sometimes the risk rating isnt entirely accurate

Whenever i go anywhere i get ambushed, i can't even *get* to a mission. Average missions aren't even that bad, i did one after i survived one ambush getting to there with half my hull left (i didn't even fitght the ambush, just running away cost me half my hull), but i got ambushed again on my way to a station and died because of the swarm of enemies that i couldn't outrun. Even if i do a mission i die because there's so many ambushes happening.

Even if i want to trade or mine i get ambushed. The point is, whenever i go away from the last station that autosaved there's a swarm of enemies waiting for me. And i have no idea what i did wrong and why they are so much stronger than me. :( I'm at the story mission where the AI wakes up and points me to the first fragment. I'm barely starting and i'm getting my ass handed to me on a regular basis...

I mean, i like the game, but this is ridiculous, there's got to be something wrong here, either something i did or some weird bug maybe? I mean, i reached a hated status with one of the factions, but still, shouldn't they be at least somewhat scaled to my ship? I can't fight 20 ships alone...

Game difficulty are based mostly on what your ship is worth. My guess is you bought a ship that's worth more than your equipment combined. Go get a cheap ship and expensive equipment.

Edit: By ship worth I mean your ship and everything on it. So you see that a expensive ship worth 5/6 of your ship value will hike up the difficulty while leaving you with a very expensive ship but crap guns and shield so you'll not survive.

Yup, that seemed to be it. I managed to get lucky and evade a few ambushes and finish those missions so i bought a few defensive upgrades. It was easy after that.

But now i bought a Barracuda, and it's hard again. :P
But no matter, now i know what to do.

Thanks for the replies everyone! :)

another tip may be to abandon the missions you got from the mission boards
some of them may have ambushes if you go anywhere near them

at least that may allow you to do some pure trading or selling of mined materials
with less ambushes and those you do get wont be based off the missions difficulty

Yes, i'm starting to do that occasionally...
Especially if the mission board states the mission as "Average" or "High" risk, but the map says "High" or "Extreme" risk for some reason... I'm not ready for extreme risk missions, especially if they pay less than average missions. This happens from time to time, i take an average mission, and it turns out it's high risk and less pay than other average missions... Nope... :P

Yeah, don't change your ship if you don't have the very best equipment yet.
A top full old ship is better than a new one full of garbage...
Learn to be patient.

Some tips:

Ships:
Generally it is more important to upgrade your weapons and defences, than buying bigger ships.
When increasing turrets count you also need to buy extra turrets which make it harder to upgrade.
The good thing is that there is no penalty for selling away your ship. So you can swap hull for your needs. Fast for transport, guns for combat.
You can always jump to next system to buy that MK6 weapon.

Tennhousen is great early choice. Cheap, fast, powefull broadside. And even have big cargo hold. This wll serve you well.
Hellion - you need to be neutral with red devils, which is doable early game. Interesting mid choice before tennhausen.

Sturvile is hard to get from mercenary guild, but is quicker, and more powerfull than Tennhousen. If you put merchant cargo hold on it, it is great for transport missions.
Vanguard- when you need more guns than Sturvile.
Acturius - even more guns than Vengence. But slow.

There are also Minotaur and Blackgate, but you will not need them for storymode.

Weapons:
Broadside: Neutron Beams are great combination of accuracy, range and power.
Secoondary: Flak, torpedoes are annoying. And your broadside should be enought for killing stuff.
Turrets: Minning killers. Good against shield. Great combo with neutron cannons as main weapons.

Generally projectile weapons have risk of missing enemy, and does not offer enought over baams ease of use.

Other equipment:
Merchant guild cargo hold, can make any ship, even the smallest and fastest great transporter.
Repair bot can save some credits on repeaits.
Mercenary guild offers support modules to upgrade your broadside power.

Cash:
It is not about money, but time efficiency.
Missions depend on your net value, so the more credits you put in ship the better missions you can get.
In first system better focus on main story.
Drop cache are great for fast ships without anything.
Transporting cargo is easy and fast. You may however need to buy hold upgrade for that.
Missions where you need acquire good and move it to station are ok, if the good is common enought.

If you have ship ready for fight:
Bounties are great since in addition to mission you get prize for the bounty.
Kill capitals is good, simple, and they drop stuff.
Safe passage is worth alot, and is generally not that hard.
Rescue missions are easy to fail, since we need to protect nps.

Other means:
Minning, is not time effective. SInce emoubnt resources you get from asteroid is minimal.

Trading has a problem that stations generally have very little goods in stock. So even if get a good connection you cant get much from a run. Also to trade for real you need cargo hold upgrade and some credits to buy initial goods. But if you have spare credits you already can just run missions.

If you are into tradint, watch for events"
Millitia Embargo and Celebration rise prices of many goods.
Market glut and Kroan Invasion drop prices of everything.

Some events drop prices to like 1/10 value, so we can buy that stuff and sell it on next station.
Also some goods worth more than 20k, may be worth to hold in our cargo untill we find green market for them.
Greel Whiskey and Allien Artifact sometimes make good red/greeen combo.

If you meat a roaming trader you can hail it and seel your cargo for mean value.

Overall, storyline is not that long, so dont overkill it with grinding.