EVE Online is a PvP game where you can never catch up to players who started earlier. Skill points are time-based, the older characters have their attributes and learning skills maxed, and someone starting today will always be millions and millions of points behind veteran players. How do you avoid bleeding newer players under these conditions?
First, it is a big universe. Who has the time or interest to go swat newbies? The most powerful players are effectively dragons, out there in the reaches of 0.0 space, waiting for dragonslayers or fools loaded with coin. Or perhaps they are corporate managers, working safely in corporate space, more likely to exploit your labor than destroy your ship.
Second, even if you are in direct conflict, only so much force can be brought to bear. All those points in Caldari ships only matter if you are flying a Caldari ship. Those millions of points for flying your Iteron V (a hauling ship) do not do you much good in combat, nor do your trading or research skills. Furthermore, each skill has five ranks, further limiting the force available. Each rank of a skill may be worth the same bonus, even as each successive rank costs many times what the previous rank did.
You can be 100 million points behind but only 5% down in this particular combat. As long as you have the relevant skills maxed, you are on equal footing. Sure, he is equally good at flying a dozen different ships, but he can only fly one at a time. Of course, all his mining and production skills let him build ships faster than you can destroy them, but that’s his reward for having spent $500 more than you on the game.
: Zubon