Experience so far

[KiriliusTheSecond]

Ok so I have been on the server for about 3 weeks now.

Most of the time I have a pretty good time, you know? Chilling in space.
I found a few groups that I play with and I'm USI and Order| factions.
After doing a bunch of trading, I got the following ships that I (IMO) maxed out and play with:
1) Order Bastet heavy fighter with 6x class 9 TARANIS 750m/s
2) Order Waran bomber with AZURAS, SNAC, 2x scorcher, Cloaking device
3) Order Osiris battleship CAU VIII w/ cloak mk II adv.
4) USI Mastodon trader 5k cargo

I thought: Great, I have all the ships that I wanted, they are fully upgraded, time for some omicrons scouting!
But fight after fight, I lose 95% of my encounters.
I know that Freelancer is not about pvp, and you should never take the game so seriously.
However, after losing to several bombers in my heavy fighter, getting crapped on when I am in the bomber against a VHF and being unable to do any damage to a cruiser while in my battleship, I am seriously starting to re-consider if the time investment I'm putting into this game is paying off in terms of satisfaction.
I am not a new comer to freelancer, but everybody that I play against seems 10x better and I don't even know what I am doing wrong.
I am engine killing, stafing, using same-speed weapons groups, tap firing and I still get destroyed and have people leave a "Pathetic" message in the chat after I leave their hull at 100% and get killed by a mine.
All I am left with is a mix of frustration, confusion and even some motivation that a brick bomber with a 58 turn rate can win against a nimble fighter with a 72 turn rate.
For the record, I'm playing with 200 ping but I am well aware that the shots are client-registered and I don't seem to have any visual lag, so I don't think that is the issue.


Anybody had a similar experience at the start? How long did it take you to hold your own on 50% of the fights?
Any tips? Thoughts? Considerations besides "Get gud n00b"?