Maybe some kind of "gauntlet" with increasingly more & harder enemies, could be used to select a suitable threat level?
So after entering a sector, or respawning, there is a POI like Elite enemies, and after defeating that you can proceed to a higher Elites, but defeat does not equals death, just a return to normal levels.
Alternatively some kind of "background- / Idle- -fighting", where the ship is matched up against enemies to find it's limit?