This whole issue seems to have been started by NPC toughness issues.
As for the bounty hunters, there are several levels of difficulty.
Basic: Hammerhead with standard guns and armor and shields. Goes down easily.
Advanced: Hammerhead with increased armor, weapon damage and shields.
Meat Shield: Hammerhead with standard guns, and lots of hit points. Takes a while to down.
Ripper: Lots of damage, but goes down easily.
Elite: Very high armor, damage and shields. You find these guys in groups of two or four on 400 or 500 thousand credit missions. These are the best loot droppers.
If you fight these guys long enough, you can tell them apart.
There are also several encounters.
Easy 1 man: 1 basic.
Easy 2 man: 2 basic
Theta Freeport encounter: 2 basic, 2 advanced, and 1 Elite,
and so on.
A freelancer I recorded at over 100,000 hit points with an increase of damage, maybe 200% normal damage.
You will also find capship encounters with more hit points than you would guess.
A rouge gunboat encounter is actually tougher to take down than a Bounty Hunter Cruiser encounter.
