DarkMere wrote:I think it probably is. For someone who has been playing the game as long as I have, I lag far behind what most people would have achieved by now. I joined the game at the Beta stage, but just as the game went live I suffered a long and disabling illness and only got back to the game in late February this year, so I can effectively be called a new starter as from then because at that point I had a sidewinder that had never been out of the hanger and 1000 credits, although I do remember how the game was before Engineers and Wingmen etc.
I am not a natural combat pilot, but I do ok. I have tried to spend some time in the Haz-Rez every week to chip away at the combat rank, and as of a month or so ago when I got my second conda that became an A rated combat ship, I still found combat very challenging. However since then I now have a wingman and the ship is engineered to grade 5. I never have to run, my shields never go down and very rarely even get bent, and the targets fall like flies. It has nothing to do with me being a good combat pilot, but the fact that my ship is far superior to any computer pilots ship. I spend the same time in the Haz-Rez now as I did a a few months ago. My combat percentage as a Master pilot is raising twice as fast as it did per hour as an Expert.
Don't get me wrong, its still a long grind from where I am now to combat Elite, and I will still feel like I have achieved something when I reach it, but I think its probably a lot easier for me and the people who have had then benefit of engineering and wingmen than it was for the commanders who did not?
It's logical to me engineering and wings helped a lot with ranking up to Elite if we're talking about people doing HAZRES zones for CG or just getting paid. Instead of a 3 minute fight in a non engineered vessel, a fully engineered one would do it in 1. Add a wing of 3 ontop of that and you'll be bringing even big targets down in a matter of seconds. More & faster kills = more & faster rank gain.
But, if the goal is just to get the Elite Rank the CNB is the only place to be, it is exactly (at this point in time anyway) what Tor said, 'Elite level anaconda is 1.75, elite sidewinder is 1.75.' Ship types doesn't matter at all, only the ranks.
If this also was the case back before my time, I'd have to say it's just as hard now as it was back then.
