Sounds like a bug: extremely low spawn rate

[CaptBogdan]

I got yesterday a mission, to kill 7 kha'ak ships.

I flew around for... like 4 hours I think. I had to manually re-activate the mission after I was flying around to destinations I set within system, but I got that thing.
First enemies spawned quickly, like a few minutes. But then, waiting and waiting and waiting, I meant wtf ? I think I flew around for more 45 minutes or something, just to see some Xenon or something else that didn't even matter for the mission.
And then it took again like dozens of minutes till the next encounter. In the end I had to go to sleep. I mean really, what's wrong with this game ?

Freelancer had it simple: get this mission, go there, kill them. It needs to have a more realtime rate, I can't grow a beard while waiting to finish a mission. While in enemy territory, you could expect constant harrassment from waves of enemies.
Even EvE did it correctly. Go to the mission place, acceleration gate, and then enemies spawn. Here, nope. This is disappointing for the amount of money spent on the game.

[chew-ie]

My way of doing these quests: accept all, do them as sidequests (read: not pursue them actively). In X4, there are no mission spawns anymore (thankfully).

[radcapricorn]

That's because they don't spawn. Well, the Kha'ak do, but not for your mission's sake. The enemies (and neutral ships) that you do meet at the outskirts of a sector aren't spawned, they're teleported from somewhere else. Each such encounter is random - you may meet pirates, miners, Xenon, Kha'ak, or a combination thereof.
If you want to quickly find specific enemies, go where you're likely to do so.

[CaptBogdan]

That's because they don't spawn. Well, the Kha'ak do, but not for your mission's sake. The enemies (and neutral ships) that you do meet at the outskirts of a sector aren't spawned, they're teleported from somewhere else. Each such encounter is random - you may meet pirates, miners, Xenon, Kha'ak, or a combination thereof.
If you want to quickly find specific enemies, go where you're likely to do so.

But if I go to another sector then probably that wouldn't register as a kill for mission.

[radcapricorn]

If the mission says specifically "in this sector", then yup, it won't.

[CaptBogdan]

My way of doing these quests: accept all, do them as sidequests (read: not pursue them actively). In X4, there are no mission spawns anymore (thankfully).

This is a great advice. Kinda like I used to do with bounties in Destiny 2. But, what does it happen if I fail a mission ? How much rep do I lose ?