Thanks for the feedback! There is a semi-working difficulty setting in the options menu if you want to adjust it. If I remember correctly it will not spawn any enemies at 0. If you set it to 1 or 5 or so you might find it a bit more approachable!
I'll be working on rebalancing at some point, so that instead of being entirely random it will have a maximum spawn rate dependant on things like your settlement size and how many ships you have.
Edit: you'll have to set the difficulty each time you start a match for now until I sort out a proper saving system.