It never seemed to like me very much

I got very fed up cruising the rings for the right rocks, a while back!
I went and had a go in a Conflict Zone last night, for the first time. Just over 2 years in the game, and I'd never summoned up the courage to go on a MurderDeathKill rampage, but since this was a war that I am actually responsible for starting, I thought it was only fair that I pitch in and fight for the faction I had been quietly promoting into prominence

One thing I am very glad of is that I did not go in there without being heavily engineered; it takes ages to kill even small ships because they are in turn tweaked a lot, and even my FDL with all it's shielding and reinforcement had to act like a shepherd and "get the flock out of here" on several occasions after being ganged up on.
That was in a "Low" zone. I tried out a "Medium" zone, and left almost immediately, due to the appearance of 4 spec-ops ships that melted me within seconds to perilously low hull integrity! I couldn't even get them in my view, let alone sights, and they were using some very pretty coloured beams that were knocking me for six. God knows how you're supposed to defeat them, I'm obviously not good enough yet!!
One entertaining thing to note... If you knock off a few ships in the CZ, then leave suddenly to trundle back to the local station, you don't lose any rep with the opposing faction - it doesn't matter how many of the opposing faction you've taken down. If you complete the CZ (win or lose), then rep
does decline, as you might expect. I found it a nice way of keeping my allied status with one side, whilst kicking whatever out of them, and also helping the influence of the other (also allied) side that I picked!