[Soundman]

I've played with both, but used TMO the vast majority of the time. Ducimus (TMO Creator) has set parameters for escorts to be much more aggressive and harder to evade. The same can be said for the planes. That's probably where much of the "Harder" opinion comes from. However, he is also mindful that too much realism can be very boring for game play and as an example, set the reload times for the deck gun a little quicker than in reality. I would suggest trying both for a while and see which fits your style of play. Also, if you go to the TMO thread in the Mod Forum, you can download the TMO manual, and Ducimus details his reasoning behind his tailoring of the game. It's a good read!