I've honestly felt Starsector felt too easy after you've updated your fleet, both in size and types of ships. Throw in the fact that the other factions don't really upgrade their colonies at the rate the player does, once I've set up even one colony I can literally obliterate almost the entirety of the games factions with my fleet, let alone when I've established 3-4 colonies and amassed an immense assembly of ships. Don't get me wrong, some of the invasion fleets I've encountered when I had one colony were pretty crazy, size wise, but with an orbital station and me sitting my fleet along with my patrol fleets at the planet, it was defend-able.
I'm ok with scaling, keeps the game challenging, but would prefer it be done realistically such as the faction actually has resources to do such a thing. Like if the Persian League only has 3 colonies left, all of which are sitting at lev 5 with basically low market shares in most of it's productions, and no military colonies at all. They shouldn't be able to send a massive invasion fleet of like 120 ships with no D mods over my way every 5 months.
I understand some people are bringing up playing the game small scale, like having a small fleet with no colonies, etc. Which is fine I suppose, but considering Starsector is built on the idea of factions, fleets, and centered around combat for almost everything you do. It doesn't seem to make sense, gameplay wise, to not be establishing a faction or joining one in hopes of increasing your foot hold in the game.
Either or, after many restarts, replays, and faction choices made I do enjoy the game with all the mods thrown in but after a few hours of playing I still feel way over powered compared to the AI of the game. I just feel the AI needs to upgrade their colonies more and there needs to be other challenges out there instead of just being thrown invasion fleets day in and day out by the AI. Sure, Ludic Path terrorist cells, Kadur Remnant, and Pirate raiders throw in some spice here and there but after a while they're just minor hiccups that are easily taken care of.
I do like the idea of wandering fleets, bounties, and maybe even a massive invading enemy faction like they had in Stellaris as well that's triggered once the player amasses a certain amount of colonies or strength. *shrug* I'm down for more content and more variations in the games difficulty and challenging engagements.