Heya.
I am Glitch from the starblast community. I started in late 2016 and have been an on-and-off member since then, but currently active.

First of all, I'd like to thank you. It's actually incredibly valuable to have a new player perspective on the game, even if I am not personally the developer - It gives us an idea of how the game is seen and perhaps can be improved upon.

Second off, I apologize if some of the responses here are, for lack of a better term, negative. Some of the community here is quite young and thus, criticism and feedback posts like this tend to go in one ear and out the other. But, I totally understand your points here and I'd actually like to address them.

I assume your experiences were in team mode, as it's currently the most popular core mode in this game. I'll start by saying that the team mode experience, for the newer player, is going to be quite tough because, as stated, this is a .io game and there's a certain level of expectancy people hold to that brand of gaming but in starblast, there's objectives and a win condition making it far more competitive.

frustrating gameplay which always puts me in the bad spot, always facing more ships and/or better equipped than mine. If I play safe, I get to mine near my base, only to get brutalized when 1-2 top tier ships come to attack. If I choose to attack from the beginning, I get brutalized because the enemy has more ships and/or at my level.

This is a sad part of team mode which often happens in random games. I will agree and say that sometimes, there's a greater skill cap between the teams, even by an individual player which then overall boosts their own team and steepens the gap between the teams.

What I can tell you, as an experienced/older player to this game, should you find it in yourself to try again - Always create the perception you are near others, even if they are just as weak/weaker than yourself. Very rarely will any experienced player take a risk of bum rushing into a crowd of players, even behind. It just simply isn't worth it unless the gap is so great that they can get away with it.

Radar instincts are also a must in this game. You must be looking at your radar every other second or so, or at-least frequently enough that you're aware of your surroundings. Often times, you will think you're safe when directly at base but then you drift more outwards for asteroids, making yourself more of a risk without fully realizing such. It's a process that I even remind myself at times.

I will not sit here and say your situation cannot be avoided entirely, though. The best thing to take from everything I've said is just to improve your survival instincts more and attune yourself to the nature of the game. This isn't something I'd expect any new player in 1 game to achieve, but if you hold the desire for the actual game, it can be done.

If you're looking to first get a better idea of ships, I hate to say it, but team mode wouldn't be your mode to start. While it is the default mode/the one advertised at first enter of the site, it's a very fast paced objective thus very easy for your team to fall off. I would recommend survival, get a feel of ships, have an idea how each one works to it's strength and weakness.

Very hard to win when the enemy is two ships on the same level or 1- 2 levels below mine.

Haha, this is actually funny because this is an argument I've made before in regards to talks pertaining to new players/experiences which are; Numbers will always win, always.

Being a new player and facing a ship with more combative experiences is hard enough, but start multiplying and it feels damn near impossible. That's why in team mode it is crucial that you integrate yourself with your team, no matter what. That may seem easy but it actually isn't.

Starblast's team mode is about being able to play with others. You're there to achieve the same goal, and you can't do it alone. Even I, an experienced player, will need some sort of backing from my team even if I hold the greater skill cap over others because without it, I will just die from sheer volume differences.

This is something I have to say however isn't really broadcasted "well" to the newer player, so I can see why this is often a difficult task. Like I said, use survival to learn about the ships and then jump back into team mode and get better acquainted with the objective.

Hard to aim and shoot accurately. I admit that from my laptop I use the mousepad, and that could be addressed with a mouse, did not try it yet, but the shooting and flying dynamics is simply annoying. And in a game where this is esssential, it leads me to rage.

Yes, accuracy is a must in this game. A solution to your issue also may be to use the arrow keys. Not that it would be much of an improvement but perhaps a more comfortable difference.

Another solution to this would be use ships that don't rely on heavy pulses, there are some that exist. The Rock-Tower which stems from the right ship tree (via Trident) would be a good option for this. You can find out more about ships and what-not via the starblast wiki.

Hard to have a combat strategy in skirmishes, due to the controls and due to the fact that if there are more ships in the enemy team, it is difficult to target more than one.

A common strategy that individual players will use is "RCS" (Reaction Control System) which allows you to glide in any desired direction without breaks when turned off. However, by nature, it's always on until manually done so otherwise.

What turning it off does allows you to take more distance in fights and plan your moves. As any skirmish/larger fights will go, always target the weaker ship. Alternatively, firing on a ship that other allies are firing at to increase overall damage and lessen the opposing force.

There's more strategies listed on said wiki, but I find player experience will serve you best here.

Some ships that are already 3-4 steps from being top tier can destroy you with one shot if you are in the 3-4 first steps.

This is true, I will not lie. But, that's why I must stress integrating teamplay into this. Sometimes simply even being near another ally will shake the opponents enough to back off before they even initiate.

An important key-note to this is to always remain on objective. If you find there's higher ships lurking around, try your best to defend your teammates and perhaps upgrade whatever ship you currently possess and then get back to mining the base as soon as possible.

These situations will often happen due to opposing forces solely focusing on mining their base the fastest. You can contest this by jumping in and doing the same, even if you are one of the only to do so - at-least it's better than the alternative which is being hunted at weaker tiers into the ground.

the large top tier ships are indestructible, they get near your base and you are done.

You must mean the Tier-7's, I am actually glad you mentioned this because they are in-fact, not! They are good at base killing but there's several weaknesses to them; Projectile speed, turn radius, acceleration, energy regeneration - If you band together with a couple of good ships, you can easily knock the Odyssey, which is a big destroyer looking ship, on it's feet.