Yes I'm playing on permadeath.

I'm rather new too, I played a bit a couple of years ago but never got far into it.

So I play survival and die a few times due to the scripted storms that I wasn't ready for.

Thats about the only time there was an issue.

So I try permadeath, and now I know when the magic scripted storms happen so I'm fine. I get about 50 million a fighter with over 30 slots, the free freighter and I'm like "lets try a pure pirate start this is getting easy".

So I start over on permadeath, have a close call on start when it puts you on a hostile planet with 25% suit hazard power, but I found a cave and haven't struggled since.

Then on top of it piracy has almost no consequences. You can even just farm the cargo pods on many freighters with no faction hit or even aggro (only the flying cargo pods seem to have faction hits).

With the ability to instant shield recharge if you have supplies (easy) you can't die, and you can outrun anything chasing you.

This game goes out of its way to never put you in a no-win situation no matter how stupid you are.

If I can teleport anywhere why do they even need freighters? (easy of play)

Why does my ship teleport with me? (ease of play)

Why can I teleport basically everywhere without effort? (ease of play)

Why can I fight 5 fighters without any issues in a basic ship? (ease of play)

Why are finding even hostile creatures a rarity? I'm in more danger outside my own door than I am from 99% of the planets fauna in NMS.

The thing is it wouldn't take much to make this a real challenge without changing the core game, and without gimping myself on purpose.

Sure I could have a house rule of never recharging my shield, never using a base teleporter, not running from fights when I don't want to take a faction standing hit, etc etc, but its a very unsatisfying way to play. If the universe is trying to kill you everywhere and you survive, thats a personal "I did this" in this case I have to play stupid which is not exactly a good feeling.

A few little tweeks for a hard mode would do it. Make warping the much less expensive way to travel and teleporting difficult due to resource use. Make shield recharging not "boom full" but maybe just a faster recharge.

I'm just complaining because this is SOO close to being a game I could really play a long time.

If there are any mods which up the difficulty please let me know I'm enjoying myself right now but I know my time is really going to be limited once I "do all the things" once.