I will say that the final battle of the tutorial is intended to be a bit of a challenge for a new player, since it's a good place to practice combat - it's essentially a fairly predictable "main-menu-mission-like" setup with low stakes (since you've got a save right before the fight). And if the player can't beat it and doesn't at least learn a bit about combat from trying to do so a couple of times, I think chances are they'll have a tough time with other parts of the game - where the stakes are higher.
... I'm basically echoing what some of you are saying here, aren't I? But, well, it's exactly the intent of the setup.
If it gets too difficult due to issues with the ship-salvaging portion of the tutorial, though, that's definitely an issue!
The fleet salvaging mission is particularly important because the difference between doing that "right" and doing that "wrong" basically determines if you win or lose the tutorial. It could use a little love.
So, right, that's a fair point; made a note. I wouldn't say you could outright *lose* it, since it's possible to not even fight the fleets guarding the jump-points (and I've seen first-time players figure that out), but, yeah, the scary-looking supply costs for ship recovery, and people trying to mothball ships when they don't really need to, it all gets a bit confusing there.
The guard fleets are a lot weaker on "easy", btw - iirc they don't even have the Venture.