Don't raid based off combat record, use size. You'll want people your rank or lower, with the same size ship or larger than you.

The smaller the ship, the more rank points spent in crew as opposed to deck, and the worse chances of a successful raid. A lower rank ship with the same size as you has likely used more or about the same amount of points in deck as you have, which equates to equal or fewer numbers in crew, resulting in better chances of raiding.

Also, if you see a scout, don't even bother. It's just not worth it.

Note that weak/passive ships are actually more likely to have spent their points in scientists and/or engineers, making them extremely bad choices for raid targets- scientist ships are near impossible to raid successfully, since they got 3 crew per rank point as opposed to 2 for helms/tact. Missions completed is also usually a good indicator of if the ship has put lots of ranks into engineers, also making it harder to raid.

yea its alot harder to pvp at low levels because theres alot of low ranks in legions that pay out massive amounts of research daily. I did not have that luxery when I started, I remember thinking iw as a total B@D@$$ mother when I finally reserached inertial dampening and disruptors.

My legion is arti based, and while our low rankers arnt the strongest out there in terms of research, there getting some good stuff at there level though.

I both agree and disagree with this statement. Yes, there are those who have slow ranked (like me, but I'm under a month old, so I'm at a disadvantage here) and therefore have nexus plating and phase shift engines, which are almost unkillable.
On the other hand, at low levels (I feel like I'm running out of these, actually) you have the people who a) played for a couple days then quit, b) don't have any idea what they are doing with their ship, c) think the game is all about the missions and put all points into engineers, d) haven't joined legions and therefore are very far behind in research, e) were planet scan multis(yes, it is against TOS but we've all run into these ships that have 5 scanners equipped and nothing else)
Also, low levels also rarely seem to have traps, while what I've read on forums indicates that as you level basically everyone has traps on, which sounds like a major pain.

yes the traps are a major pain, but do a comparison from when I was your level:

when I was your level Protiens and mark 2 and 3 dom cannons didnt exist, so there was no need to raid, the legion bases had just started getting intruduced, and so there really wasnt much in the way of research payouts and such

high tech was graviton shearers, inertial dampeners and durtanium plating

now from what ive read on legion comm there are rank 20s trolling around with nexus armor, and singularity launchers. Which you know those players are fostered by their legion becuase the upkeep for those mods would bankrupt a standard level 20 DAILY, let alone paying for them.

any rate that is the short and long of it, if you want to easy pvp without dealing with the massivly doctored accounts then run scanners and hit hackers, your gonna loose research but you'll disable in 1-2 hits as opposed to possibly your entire energy bar.

I do that when I get trapped in firewall so I just throw on a tach or subspace and hit

Not at all necessary. Artifacts are absolutely amazing for credits at low ranks, if your base puts out primary or secondary artifacts, or even if you've got a few hundred AP/h, you can build that up into a lot of credits.

Explains why I merc and get a ton of credits, pulled roughly 500 ku today via mercing

You don't even have to dabble in artifact merchanting to get plenty of money.

1. Ask legion
2. Merc
3. Planets ( least of my worries for now ) But I'm getting another 2 atri planets next week

Not even, artifact points alone is sufficient.