I performed many "hardcore" runs, few ended with wipe from sudden pirate deathball (most frustrating when jump not reporting neaby ships but they are waiting for you, most noticable with large suns), few from pathers (unescapeble station of doom), few from expedition deathball (hello triple capital raid), but most runs finalized by lack of interesting things to do.
In each case, game had two parts - part where losing ships result in punishing "check AI shops" unfun activity and part where losing ship can be mostly ignored.
Part where wolves got replaced by auroras at 1:1 rate (this is not possible without owned station due to randomness of AI shops)
Part of infinite money and supplies.
Part with place that can be called "home".
Everything changes with colony, that almost instantly provide access to endgame stuff and if run properly, to endgame stuff and infinite money at same time.
Game do not provide any helpful tips about how important colony is and how huge benefits of colony are.
There are no quests for nanoforge or score.
At same time, establishing colony true cost is below 100k, if transport ships and food\supplies\goods taken in account, below 300k, this is just 3 derelict quests that can spawn in same system.
And in case of planet with "vast ruins" cost of colony refunded after just 30 days...
Suggestion is about changing it, by integrating colony stuff into tutorial, and replacing 15k stipend with colony that produce some goods, that can be sold by player for variable income. This will be interactive and also can be part of tutorial.