I might at some point. I'm a stubborn ass. The good news is that I'm at Sector 4 and doing better than I ever have thanks to everyone's advice here. One big mistake I was making was not plotting out my course ahead of time. I'm now maximizing my time in each sector to hit the most spots, and it is paying off well. I'm afraid of my weapons being weak though....I haven't gotten anything new yet, and each store has had garbage for sale weapons-wise. Hopefully Sector 4 has some good stuff.
Yeah...I'm afraid. Ran into my first baddie with 2 layers of shields. I rocked him, but my missile supply is running low. I'm trying to use just 1 per fight to hit their shields, while my laser takes down their weapons. But there are no stores in this sector, and I'm getting low on fuel. Not "Dear God" low, but nervous low.
And now I have 3 different hull breaches. Do I need drones to fix those? Nothing is gonna stop this train!
For aiding someone, I just got a "Charge 3". I don't know what this is, but it looks awesome.
Sorry to keep editing. Sector 6! You guys have turned this Padawan into a Jedi. Still trucking through on this playthrough. I'm afraid that this eventual loss will hurt me more, simply because as far as I've come now.
Sector 7....dead. I ran into a ship with 4 shields, ion weapons, and mind control. It was easily the toughest ship I'd fought. I didn't even scratch it. It rocked me beyond belief---couldn't do shit. I eventually ran, which brought me to another ship that sent invaders over. I suuuck at dealing with invaders. My strategy this time, which worked well, was to use blast doors to drain their oxygen. My blast doors were broken from previous fight I'd run from though....I was able to fire up FTLs enough to jump again from that fight, but the invaders stayed on board. My crew were all so messed up that I literally could do nothing Medbay broken, and with hull damage in there. My guys were too weak too fix before death. They pooled together in the engine room, listening to death tear the ship apart. Then in a brave finale, they charged the enemy. And their tale ends there.
Don't give up, not everyone needs to start on Easy. I've played on Normal from the get-go, and while it took me awhile to learn all the strategies necessary for victory, I've beaten the game plenty of times now. Just beat the game on Hard a week or so ago too.
And I have some more tips for you. Hull breaches can be repaired by crew, just be careful not to let them suffocate to death. Breaches actually save work done on them if the crew leaves, so you can send them to the Medbay to heal then come back if necessary. Also, if you have your O2 system powered up to rank 2 or higher, you can open the doors to the room with the breach and the air from the other rooms will keep the breached room from running out of air (or refill it with some air even if it was already drained). Make sure you don't do this with O2 only at 1 power though, if you do the breach will drain air out of those rooms too.
Also, do NOT ignore Crew Teleporter/Drone Bay systems like someone else said. A teleporter is the single best system to have in the game, because if you kill enemy ships' crews without destroying the ship you get increased rewards. Not only do you get more scrap and frequently more fuel, there's also a decent chance of getting a free weapon, drone, or crew member. If you have trouble dealing with boarders on your own ship though, you may want to practice some more before you go with this strategy. When you do attempt it, make sure to A) Never board a ship that is trying to run away. If it jumps with your crew members on board, they are gone for good. B) Pay close to attention to the enemy ship's remaining Hull Points. Do not fire on it if it is low on Hull and your crew is still on board, they will die if it's destroyed. If you get a Clone Bay this becomes less of a problem though.
Also, a Hacking system goes great with a boarding strategy because it locks the doors on the room you hack, preventing enemies in it from running to the Medbay if they have one.
Drone Bays are great because Defense Drone mk. 1 will shoot down incoming missiles (though some still get through occasionally) as well as enemy boarding drones. The new Shield drone and Anti-Drone are nice too, and using your own Boarding Drones can be great if you have plenty of Drone parts to spare. If you use Boarding Drones, try to take out the enemy's O2 system as well so the enemies run out of oxygen even quicker. Having certain drones gives blue options for some events too. Combat/Beam drones can also supplement your offense if you're not getting good weapons. Beam drones are especially good for taking down Super Shields very quickly.
Cloaking is good for reaching 100% evasion when it's active, but I find if you get your engines to max with a max skill pilot and engineer, Cloaking is really not necessary. It's good if you can afford to get it early though, when you don't have anywhere near max engines yet.
For weapons, a Vulcan will single-handedly destroy almost any ship in the game given enough time. Never pass on this if you see one you can afford. Bomb weapons are fantastic because unlike missiles, they can't be shot down. Breach Bomb mk II is the best with a relatively short cooldown and high system damage and breach chance. Little trick i've never seen anyone mention before so I'm not sure if it's known, but AI-controlled ships can't repair systems that have a hull breach. Another weapon you should never pass is Ion Blast mk II. It has such a low cooldown that you can leave it on auto-fire and it will single-handedly take down any amount of Shields in a short amount of time. If you time it properly you can even hit other systems (once the shields are down) and then switch back to targeting Shields and keep them down too.
Hope this post wasn't too long.