It's not the same game it once was, it has changed a lot.
The way new universes work now, is that a few people throw money at the game, to gain a massive advantage. The people who knows a bit selects discoverer, because it's expedition outcomes are tied to rank 1's total points. New players select collecter and later finds out they've made a mistake picking collector. In 5-6 weeks, the majority of players will have been hit once and have quit because of it. 5-6 weeks is also the time it takes for a new universe to be opened, so the cycle can repeat itself.
Blindly attacking other players with small cargo, doesn't seem to be much of a thing anymore. It's better to send everything you have on expeditions, as soon as you are able to do so. I liked the blind attacking with cargos, used to be fun and very profitable. Sadly, metal packages, high eco and discoverer expeditions being tied to rank 1, turbo boosted the development of new servers. You no longer have a progression through the tech trees over a week or more. Now it's hours or a couple of days at most. The game basically starts in early late game. In my opinion, low eco universes doesn't make sense to play anymore, they will eventually be merged into high eco universes.
I don't like new servers, I prefer the older servers. I think it would be better if GameForge limited the amount of new servers to 2-3 per year. Maybe people wouldn't quit so easily, if there wouldn't open a new server in a couple of weeks. That's never going to happen though, they've found a cash cow and they are going to milk it dry. At the same time, without those whales looking for massive advantages on all the new servers, the game may not even have been around anymore. The pay to win is just something you'll have to learn to live with, it's not going away.
You'll probably never be able to crash a whale, even with a 5 man acs. After all, the whale has paid GameForge, for you to be his entertainment. You can stay safe though, if you fleetsave properly. If you're chasing rank, for the sake of having a high rank, then you'll have a bad time, especially in the short run.