You mean carrier group, the distance between big ships? It does not change anything, SLF's spawn from specific ships in carrier group, and those keep and keep launchin 'em, whenever SLF's gets killed.
Never said it was easy. And never was, as to be done correctly, skill & knowledge at decent levels required, at very least.
To be truly efficent at it, not only specialized bulid is required, but also one has to be quite decent at combat (paticulary good at evasive while under heavy pressure), well as having good understooding how exacly npcs behave, and complex understooding of overall game mechanics as well - and knowing exacly what are rules for progresion rank.
Merit gain was actually nerfed, well as amount of XP from those elite SLF by lowered a bit (If remember correctly).
But unlike every other PVE, every kill of elite SLF, counts towards combat rank, and those can be, again, one-shoted by right bulid, and whole groups of such can be dispatched in seconds - good luck one-shoting npcs anywhere else
Still, its currently fastest method I am aware of, due of sheer amount of SLF wich can be being spawned per hour (if killed fast enough), far as combat rank progress is being concerned (dont confuse it with merit gain - there are better ways these days), as even right now, hundreds of SLF's per hour can be still farmed, if using right bulid and method - this much havent changed at all.