I am currently in the top 5% with just shy of 6 million Credits earned. That is despicable. I am an old timer, way past my prime. In my day, we would have been at Tier 2 by now using nothing but Eagles and Sidewinders!. You young upstarts are going soft. You'll all make fine imperial slaves once the Empire sweeps through Volungu.
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/ooc: There are imperialist or imperial sympathizers causing trouble in the Open conflict zones in Volungu. If you're not interested in winning the CG (I'll bet my last Million there will be an opposing CG for the Empire out soon, today probably!) then by all means, go fight in the Open confict zone, and brawl away with the dissenters who have nothing to gain by being there right now.
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However, if your goal is to win the CG then switch to Solo or wing up with ONE friend in a group. Any more than 2 CMDR's in an instance and earning potential goes down. Also, remember Jemeson is an outpost. With the traffic that the CG will bring, it will be difficult to obtain docking permission, so again it is advantageous to do it in Solo or in a small Group.
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I earn approximately 1.5 million Credits in bonds per hour in Solo. I have found, that finding the densest grouping of green and shooting anything red near them creates a ball of death for enemy ships. Once you achieve a big green ball, everything dies fast, even Anacondas. Resist the urge to chase Vipers and Cobras that run... they will come back. Stay in your ball, target nearest and let the green ball wreck everything for you.
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I am usually an Open player. I would rather play in Open, all the time. However, these CG's are not designed to reward people that stay in Open. It saddens me to say it, but Solo is the way to "win" CG's. Until FDev do something about this, abuse it, and complain about it. Maybe it'll get fixed.