difficulty settings

I know I’m going to sound like a noob but I’ve played through the first 12 missions or so and I can’t figure out how to increase the difficulty for the missions. Does increasing the difficulty award you more honor? If not, I’m confused because as I play the missions over I am getting less honor for winning than what the game says I will receive if I will using the current fleet I chose. Any response would be appreciated, thanks.

Since I have unlocked everything and i have no other use for honor, I don’t remember exactly how it works. I’m sure others could explain it better than me, but I will try.
I’m also not sure if I’m understanding your questions correctly. This could be because my english is not so good…

On the Choose Mission screen you see how much honor you already earned for each difficulty for every mission.

For example you play mission X in difficulty Normal and you earn 1000 honor. If you play mission X a second time in difficulty Normal you will only earn the honor that exceeds 1000 (because you already got the 1000 honor).

So, the honor that is shown in the Deployment Screen is not automaticly the honor you will gain. It’s the honor you will gain if you didn’t already beat it.

On the Deployment Screen you can choose the difficulty on the bottom of the screen (Normal, Hard, Expert). It’s not really a difficulty setting, it just another, hopefully stronger, ennemy fleet you’re facing. And of course you get the full honor, since you didn’t beat it already.

Hope it’s understandable and I could help a bit.