If you’re finding combat difficult, I should mention a trick I read online. Once you’re a high enough level (and have a few science weapons) and have some cash, respec to put 100 points into Science and close enough to Engineering and you can upgrade your weapons and armor cheaply. When you respec back into your preferred build, your “tinkered” weapons remain. I guess you can do this a couple of times, but even with maxed science/engineering it can be prohibitively expensive to move up too many levels.
It’s still way cheaper and easier to just buy/loot higher level gear when you get to it. The one exception are the science weapons that this is meant for. After I did this and reverted my specs, I know one science weapon would have cost me 800,000Cr to upgrade another level.
I switched to hard after this, about level 20 but still on Monarch IIRC, and combat was trivial (I basically only died because I just wasn’t used to healing). The hard achievement didn’t pop, though, so either the difficulty change didn’t take or you have to start the game on hard to be a real virtual tough guy.