Playing this game on anything above Easy drives me nuts. There's just not enough scrap to keep updating shields/engines, while also having some leftover to purchase stuff early on at stores. Maybe if I stopped randoming my ship choice and picked one with a good early configuration I'd have more success but I try so hard to subscribe to the idea that random = fun that I rarely make myself do it.
"We are open to all opinions as long as they are the same as ours."