Competition, not so much it is a big galaxy afterall, it all just comes down to scale. Advanced character can do a whole lot more because they have access to more resources.that said one of the 'major events' of the rp before Guildfall was a bounty hunting job more or less that saw 5 or 6 of us racing against each other to find the target, none of us used our capital ships for it (at least until the end where half of us decided to assault the fortress the target was in, even then two of us chose to sneak in quietly.) so we were all more or less playing to the basic character level at that point. The difference being our other assets could do other things at the same time.