Do some beginner quests have odd difficulty ramps?

... or am I missing something obvious?

After the PNQ and research missions I decided to play a few faction quest lines.

1st Quest: Argon Vs Xenon. Started with a Easy mission. Asked to drop a sat in a couple Xenon Sectors. Fine Easy ill get in a fast fighter and blast through the gates. Next Step: Go scan that Hostile Defense Platform. WTF? After half a dozen failed attempts I abandon that mission. I don't think there are stealth or cloaking systems in X4F?

2nd Quest: Paranid Plot. Asked to escort a faction leader to a conference. ok. Odd ship takes off, asked to follow and scan. ok. Explosions and small hostile fleet spawn on my position, With the expected outcome. Decided to rerun but call in 2 of my own Gunships and a Flak Destroyer. Losses to high and I still get targeted if I'm in a fighter. Was I meant to abandon the Escort Target?

Whats more irritating is that in game dialog is not very informative about correction actions to be carried out and trying to search up quests and find guides has limited to no results.

So you give up and go play something else.

With the new patch out, I'm thinking about giving it another shot. Any advice on how to approach these quests in general?