I’m looking at and firing at an enemy torpedo and if I try to lock onto it my ships spins in some random direction because it’s locked on to an enemy ship that’s in completely the opposite direction.

Once I’m in the enemy freighters shield brakes on my ship seem to stop working so I end up bouncing off the ship. I can’t run through the lines to destroy the shield generators when I’m getting bounced back into space.

I’m decent at space combat otherwise but the it feels like the game is handicapping me during freighter attacks. I keep getting dropped into the middle of an asteroid field with friendlies blocking my shots.

Extra fun is that the freighter you’re saving has an RNG controlling the class. When I actually did save a freighter it was a C class ship, a huge step backwards from the A class I have. Sorry but the new mechanic kinda sucks, the ships being saved should Always be an A class or better or it’s not worth the time. The free freighter that the Atlas questline gives you was better than what I got when I saved a freighter. That’s the level of time the new system wastes.

This is not a rant, it’s more of an “I need advice because this…”.
I’m really enjoying exploring but every time I’m attacked by anything now, I just can’t be bothered, it’s not fun, I just stop the ship and immediately transfer everything out of the ship inventory into my suit so I don’t lose it and then wait for the inevitable.

It pains me to do this because I like games to be challenging, I don’t want things handed to me on a plate, I always set games to the hardest difficulty as I did with NMS except for perma death, but I’ve gradually had to reduce the combat difficulty setting and I’ve now got it set to one up from the easiest setting, yet I’m still being absolutely rinsed!
It’s bad enough that it feels like I must be doing something wrong or missing something obvious.

I’m not expecting to conquer the universe after just 12 hours of playing but so far I’m terrified to get into my ship and go anywhere near the clouds because every time I try to go anywhere, I immediately get scanned, of which there doesn’t seem to be any escape from as the scan only takes about 3 seconds. Then a bunch of ships instantly spawn on me that seem to be able to move and turn 10 times faster than I can, so I just end up spinning in circles with an alarm screaming “Shields are down, shields are down”.
And then as soon as my shields are dead I don’t have the materials to repair them, so I need to leave the planet to find the materials to repair the shields but I can’t even leave the atmosphere without being attacked.
I can’t outrun them, I can’t maneuver away from them, and my first encounter destroyed my shields so with no shield I can’t even take down 1 of them let alone 5, and the materials I need are apparently not on this planet.

I’m playing on PC but I use a controller as soon as I get in a ship, I discovered the auto-lock target system which definitely helps as the enemy ships seem to be able to move and turn 10 times faster than I can so I have no chance of doing it manually.
But I still seem to just end up spinning round in circles trying to catch them, and by the time I’ve managed to put a few shots on them, I’m already dead because I can’t repair my shields.

So I figure I must be doing something wrong or missing something.

• Are you supposed to stay on the spawn planet for a long time? Do you eventually discover something, like an upgrade that helps you get off the planet?
  There doesn’t seem to be any missions to do now, the game is telling me to go off planet and head to the stars but I can barely get out of the atmosphere.
• Maybe I’m using the auto-targeting system wrong, are you supposed to basically sit still in the ship and let the target system do its thing or should you continue to boost and try to maneuver manually as well, am I fighting against it if I’m also trying to maneuver?
• And in general, I know it might be difficult but without any major spoilers, any hints or clues to what might help me get through the beginning of the game so I can then progress on to learn and improve over time?