I'm not particularly anti-pvp or a very strict solo/group player. More often than not i end up that way though, for immersion/escapism reasons. Not because i am worried someone could break the mary-sue adventuring princess megalomaniacal delusion of a valued KFC customer (tbh nobody has the power to do that, it is unbreakable and made of thargoid meta-alloy) but for whole another, imo not sufficiently emphasised reason:
The combination of disinhibition and common denominator.
a) Common denominator. Not trying to force a value judgement about 'lowest' but i would consider people with hard-ish scifi inclination a minority and people able to construct a complex, coherent image of say Federation or Imperial culture also a minority. There is absolutely no reason why Elite should be targeted to those minorities only and there is absolutely no reason why all gameplay should not be accessible without investing time and energy into those concepts. The inescapable side effect of that is - all interaction will default to something and that something will inevitably be real world 2017. This is the smallest part of the problem though.
b) Disinhibition. You see, interactions ingame, while not meeting my or even frack it, Braben's idea of the universe in 3303, if they mirrored the 2017 real world militaries, corporate culture or foreign politics it would actually still be overwhelmingly interesting and one could argue, realistic. What happens instead though, is disinhibition because of the lack of lasting consequences - and a regression to a more primal and basic mode of interaction, which has precious few examples from adult life, street gang warfare and prisons being some. It has plenty of examples from school and youth culture though and closely mirrors the normal dynamic of a high school.
And guess what. I hate school. Not books, not homeworks, not maths - but the mentality. The most terrifying thing is not what it showed me about others - but what it revealed about myself. Now I live my entire life to arrogantly elevate myself above that dynamic and gloat - and it works, for me and for everyone around. I'm happy. And not willing to break that very real happiness, ever. I deserve it as an old bat, i feel entitled to it.
But seeing the whole dynamic of skulking and highwaking, it does not bring associations with space cowboys and wild west - the sort of fragile balance uberviolent fantasy epitomised by 'god made us different but colonel Colt made us all equal' and ' an armed society is a polite society'. It's unfortunately a literal pattern match with the dynamic in school corridors. That's when i try to suppress the feeling - and if i fail i mode-switch. It is my failure and my weakness.
