The Terran Confederation is doing pretty okay, all things considered.
We had a relatively early first contact with a hostile species (immediately opened fire against our Constellation-class science vessel and destroyed it) while we were still exclusively researching construction techs and building up our industrial base and our shipyards.
Thanks to the Constellation's EM sensors, we were able to get an estimate of the tech level of the other species - sadly much higher than ours, with 32. 000 km/s missiles while we were kick-starting our own missile research with the first magneto-plasma engines just coming into production. Thankfully they didn't seem too interested to reach our nearby colony (with 19 million corundium, 1. 0 accessibility. ) I left that JP alone for two years while I built up three separate fleets and kept exploring in other directions.
Eventually we made contact with them again in a completely different system, on our "northern" border (the opposite one from the first contact system) that's probably linked to their homeworld. Fifteen confirmed warships over 14k tons, four 22k tons warships and twenty-nine 7. 4k tons warship, that's what they have in this new system, with a small colony of 7m "souls. " With guarded jump points and a lot of STO defending our planets, I went in with a collier, a tanker and a 14-strong fleet. 120m range size 8 missiles, 5600km/s speed. . . but no PD whatsoever. Risky, but it payed off.
The screenshot is from that first foray in the alien-controlled system. Thankfully their missiles have a largely inferior range to our own and the first engagement saw them run after losing four ships. No hits received on our end, and more than 70% of ordnance remaining, we press on to see if we can hit the planet. There we spot another approaching fleet: apparently a large number of civilian ships possibly taking colonists/infrastructure to the alien planet. Managed to destroy two of them, but the escorts seemed to have an almost overwhelming PD system and 56 missiles weren't enough to get more than 2 hits per salvo. We then proceeded to fire against the now "sieged" planet where the civilian ships had taken refuge (possibly committing some kind of war crime in the process) but their STOs were so overwhelmingly numerous that not even a single missiles went past their net. We eventually retreated from the system and awarded a lot of medals for destroyed tonnage. We're already planning another offensive, this time in both their systems and with a new class of Point Defense Escorts.