Flux loss and spectral distortion as a function of the incoming number of photons per frame (i.e. not the observed count rate) inside a 30-arcsec extraction circle. For four spectral models (shown in different colours, with flux loss increasing and spectral distortion decreasing at fixed Φ for increasing spectral hardness) for both EPIC-pn (left) and EPIC-MOS (right). Solid coloured lines show the equation results, data points are the simulator results. Error-bars estimate the stochastic error in the simulations. Dashed vertical lines represent the old PHSTools-based flux thresholds. Dotted vertical lines represent the two new simulator-based flux thresholds. Coloured dashed lines show spectral distortion for spectra of single pixel patterns only.