Well, as a tester this part actually can be really useful for us, too. I think that the combat balance in the current version is a little on the hard side, in terms of your bullets not going fast enough to catch some enemies properly. It's definitely gone up a lot in difficulty, to be sure.
THAT said, even if you drop the combat difficulty down to You Are So OP difficulty mode (I'm going to put that back in the quick start options list, I think), then it should still be a plenty hard game at the solar map level. The game is meant to be difficult even if you win every engagement, so if difficult engagements are your trouble, there's no shame in dropping the combat difficulty down and keeping on trucking. There are plenty of people who play on diff 5 or 6 in AI War and have a blast, you know? I play on 7, because I don't like the stress of 8. So I mean, it's whatever makes you have a good time, and let's you play the parts you enjoy.