Uh, yeah it does. Unless you're talking about your momentum. I assume you're wanting something like a basic top down wasd movement pattern with no turning controls? There's no way that'd be playable with a large, slow ship, being able to back up or strafe while facing a target is too vital.
Just put yourself on auto-pilot and watch the carnage unfold
1. High stability will improve defenses, and the buildings that tend to improve stability are also the ones that help defend it. A base with an orbital staiton is like 10 times as hard to raid as one with nothing. A base with an orbital station, ground defenses, and a fleet base is basically untouchable by most things. Early on though it's often easier to manually defend the colony- destroy pirate fleets when they come to raid it or convoys to/from it, take out any bases targetting it. If you're having trouble with the path as opposed to pirates, you can avoid them by being a shitty little farming commune. If the pirate fleets are too big to crush easily, remember you can join in on fights in progress, or pick on fleets that just finished fighting and have low readiness.
That sucks, hopefully a system for that will get implemented.
I did fight with it but it wasn't enough.
I'm not sure exactly what it depends on, but I know it can vary a ton, and it can be small enough to fail without any interference at all. It does seem like they usually send bigger fleets later, but I'm not sure if that's related to time, the size or strength of their target, your experience level, or something else.
You can try controlling a carrier, it is both way easier than battleship and generally more helpful for the fleet becase AI isn't(wasn't when i was trying the game) that good in carrier strike power management aspect. Or try to find vessel with combat style suitable for you, there are plenty of different ships which makes game really great imo. E.g. missile alpha strike shit became a way to go for me, though AFAIR good gear for that is relatively hard to find.
