Convoy "Threat Level" bugged, or meaningless?

[mscsniperx]

I am in an Anarchy system attacking random Convoys with my A-rated Conda to grind up my engineering parts. Problem is, the Convoy "Threat Level 2" seems bugged. Half the time a threat level 2 is a wing of novice sidewinders but the other half it is an insane FLEET of ships with a WING of Plasma Sniping Anacondas, Type 10s and smaller craft !! For giggles I tried taking on the "threat 2" fleet of Anacondas and get destroyed in a matter of seconds.

What is the point of a threat level if just 2 can be either novice sidewinders or a fleet of well outfitted Anacondas?? makes no sense.

 

[Deadlock-3000]

Well, that whole deal has never been very well defined. I was never sure whether the threat level meant "threat to me personally in my currently outfitted ship and/or ranks" or was some other attempt at an absolute Richter scale of threat. For the latter, I don't know how you're supposed to guess at what threat you can deal with, but that's Elite, where "blaze your own trail" is a euphemism for "make wild stabs in the dark in a needlessly obscure world of various interlocking presets".

It wouldn't surprise me if what you get in Convoy Dispersal Pattern 2 were just entries on an set of encounter tables, because that's how everything else works in supercruise. In some encounters, the opponents that are spawn are definitely scaled in some way to your current ship, because once you pass a certain point you only ever get the same one or two opponents. There was a time, a couple of years back, where I could tell you with 90% accuracy exactly what you would expect to find in Weapons Fire 1, 2 and 3, but they've probably been tweaked since.

 

[Burke]

its a trap!