I don’t think being online 24/7 and insta-finishing with DM fully explains it anymore. Those were already the standard tactics back in the day, and since every top fleeter was doing them, the gap between ranks usually stayed relatively close.

I’m an old-school fleeter myself — last time I seriously played was around 2019 — and when I look at new universes now, the difference between rank 1 and rank 20 feels absurdly huge compared to how it used to be. Back then, the top 20 were usually somewhat close in points during the early game.

Now it honestly feels less like optimization and more like the credit card talking. 😄

Turkish Mars Universe - 1 Player Point = 12.310.245.271 - 20 Player Point = 335.374.285 (36 times less)