LEVEL DOES NOT MATTER if you have Plasma cannons and Inertial Dampeners and the enemy has Ion cannons and motion compensators.

Sure it does. You need deckspace to be able to equip those modules and the credits to be able to afford them.

robert your over simplifying things,

Rank does not assure any level of strength in any field in the game, it does though set the reasonable limits on the levels of strength. (sure you CAN put every last every planet into research and every last research point into energy but eventually you wont be able to afford them so youll probably get some mining planets and probably start putting research onto other things)

I believe multiple problems may be at work here, but I'm not sure which ones. For organization, I'll list some possible problems and a few solutions here:

Problem 1: you are showing up on the battle tab for opponents higher than you
Problem 2: you are being target-shared to legion members that are higher than you

Solution 1: increase cloaking skill*
With higher cloak, it requires higher scanning to see you, so less people can find you. But this does not help with problem 2.

Solution 2: increase defense skill*
With higher defense, those who attack you will lose countless energy and credits just to disable you. They will likely give up before you're disabled.

Solution 3: get more friends
Having a higher legion size will deter many attacks in fear of retribution. It has been suggested not to add random strangers because they may act greedily with your legion shares or not even answer your cries for help.

Solution 4: get bigger friends
His does not help prevent the problems from starting, but they will immediately stop from repeating when your friend 20 levels higher than them disables them and tells them why.

*Note: ranking up does nothing to help except if you spend ranks into decks and upgrade modules into that new space. More powerful modules only matter in PvP if they are more powerful than the other player's. Since they are much higher level, it is my suggestion that your best bet is not to rank up, but to stay put. By doing so, you have more time in which to research into better modules, giving you access to devices higher than your level would suggest. Also, if your decks are already full, try switching out reactors, relays, and scanners for cannons, dampeners, and cloakers. It will incease your ability to survive combat.

LOL!!! if that is the case then the system is alot more confident in my abilities than I am.... HAHAHA! Based on my scans, I'm out classed in every category I can see on most of these players.

Having said that, and all previously, I recently came across a player that I think I could tangle with. He was only 14 levels above me.... but I had no energy left... I was just curious. When I got my energy up, and went back, he was no longer on my scan list...

So I missed my rare opportunity apparently...

A strategy I have developed:
if you find a good target on the battle tab, but are out of energy, keep their ship page up. When you get the energy, you can still attack them because they are still on your screen.

I had to go level up to get the energy....

it wont let me do anything unless i close the battle screen.

opening a new tab, it wins

Spacecowboy, he means open up another browser tab or window and level up while still keeping the ship targeted on the other tab or window.

Yeah thanks... not sure why i never thought about that before, but it beats waiting for days for one to show up again...