How do I make a game that is challenging right from the start
I want to make it hard then it stays on hard mode all the way through
The thing I’m noticing is that for me when the game is harder there is more initiative for me to play and survive
I was thinking of doing one where spoilers spawn at 0 systems known so that I can actually have some incentive to protect my colonies and fuel harvesters plus I would of had 10% research and limited research
If you set Invaders to spawn immediately you’re going to die if you’re doing a normal TN start. Swarm will also cook you if they find you early. There’s just not a viable way to deal with either of them in Sol a couple years after game start.
A better approach is multiple gamestart NPRs with a high difficulty modifier, high hostility modifier, moderate amount of NPR explored transits, low starting NPR distance from player, 0% chance of pre-ind/ind/minor NPR + low ruin gen chance + high NPR gen chance (ruin gen blocks NPR gen IIRC and ruins also give plenty of free stuff to boost your growth), plus all enhanced spoilers enabled.
At 500-1000% difficulty and high hostility you’re going to be facing a very large volume of hostile ships every time you encounter an NPR. With low ruin gen and high NPR gen you’re going to keep finding new ones. If you die too much turn difficulty down to 200-300%.
Does it buff the spoilers too or they stay the same?
You can also increase spoiler starting points. @nuclearslurpee has mentioned before the roughly doubling their starting research points is more or less equivalent to the next technology era.
Making them even have even faster ships with more dakka is definitely a difficulty spike.
In my current campaign I doubled all spoilers for the first time and can definitely say I crapped bricks the first time I saw their missile speed 
can’t give away any spoilers for that encounter yet though
You can set the Raiders to spawn at 1 system, so from the start, up their research points, and they will pretty much keep on your toes from day one.
Also, use all ships as military, no commercial. This will require some “cheating” a bit at the beginning as you need larger naval shipyards.
Once you do that, you’ll need lots maintenance, shipyard workers, and more, so your population is always going to be in deficit of workers for the most part of the start. You’ll have to rrly a lot on the civvies, so powerful raiders from day1 will also mean more patrol, more ships ready for the fight, and mostly action!
As Froggiest says, you should rely on the civilians.
But if you disable them too, you cannot assign them contracts, so you shall move by yourself all the structures wherever you what them.