So, I did a bit of math regarding the approximate average number of credits a mission might reward versus what kind of ship (and outfits) a player might have. A Starfighter with tier 2 equipment took approximately 3 missions to obtain. A Galaxy with teir 3 equipment took approximately 7 missions to obtain. A Centurion with teir 4 equipment took about 14 missions.
To say the least, this is a far cry from the “10 missions per difficulty bump” that I haphazardly put into the game! That, and the NPC on Tenmou that offered to take 5000 credits off the player to decrease the number of missions completed by 10 was also way too cheap.
Which is a rather long-winded way of saying: I’ve updated the demo so that the number of missions completed before difficulty starts adjusting has gone down quite a bit. The NPC on Tenmou now costs 6000 credits, but the player has the option to adjust the difficulty with this method up or down.