I started writing hoping to run space opera series.
The first challenge I ran into is described in articles. Audience shows less connection to the same scene set in a cantina after the characters go through a hatch and a lock than they do when it takes place in a break room with a door.
Everything in sci fi, particularly with aliens and alien landscapes and structures have to be described to help visualization.
Very few readers online come to read space opera to start with; modern reader has no patience for descriptive passages. And they dislike the unfamiliar setting.
All in all, fantasy is easier, because it relies on familiar historic tropes and Tolkien or folklore derived imagery.
I have sci fi tech in my current story, but it is set basically in the modern world.
Next story, I want to also write in near-future.
As much as I want to write space opera, I don’t, because it’s better left to visual media, like movies or anime.