Are you playing on Easy, Normal, or Hard? Once you have the basic metagame down (I believe around 30 hours of playtime), then getting to the final zone should

Are you playing on Easy, Normal, or Hard? Once you have the basic metagame down (I believe around 30 hours of playtime), then getting to the final zone should be doable with the default ships. Also, are you using space to pause the game when you need it? I had no clue that I could do that until 20 hours in, just before I almost deleted it all of my computer.