I played an earlier version of Endless Sky but haven't kept up with the recent developments. I agree that combat in Endless Sky is a lot harder than in EV and

I played an earlier version of Endless Sky but haven't kept up with the recent developments. I agree that combat in Endless Sky is a lot harder than in EV and really is not worth it until you can get a quite decent ship and get good at the game mechanics for combat. The key for me was to start by doing standard missions until you get enough money for trading commodities. Then you start developing trade routes and shipping commodities yourself. You build up a convoy/fleet, monitor prices in different systems, and make real money by buying low and selling high. That's more fun than it sounds, but it is a bit of a grind admittedly. Once you get going you can really make tons of money. This is the easiest way to afford a decent ship (in my opinion). And to me that's when the fun came in. Endless Sky also allows you to own multiple ships (unlike EV), so you can design different ships or even fleets for different purposes (one fleet for combat, one fleet for exploration, one fleet for trade, etc.). But there is unfortunately a bit of grinding you have to do before you can get to that point. Note that none of this involves the storyline, so you can do this for as long as you'd like regardless of how much of the story you have completed.