It does have potential, which is why I didn't want to review it until after my coffee... It was good too... an Americano made with my Aeropress, served in a big orange mug with what my partner would call "too much" milk. Still, it's how I like it in the mornings. Too sleepy to fuss around with the espresso machine.
Anyway yeah, it's a thing I considered yesterday, at least in part. Though I was thinking more along the lined of additive (or even multiplied) mass lock. That being that a wing of smaller ships would cause mass lock on a larger one - allbeit with a shorter range. If all ships in an area contributed to an overall masslock factor that affected each and every ship there, then once battle is joined, then even the largest ships would need to fly far enough away before they could jump - a distance that would increase with the number of large or superlarge ships in the area. Capital ships like the Farragut or Majestic would obviously add greatly to this locking field, and more than one, even more so.
What I can't get my head round though is how it would only affect enemy ships. To me that calls for a little too much handwavium. Otherwise, Kaocraft's suggestion seems fine as a starting point. Much more so than a time limited forcefield.
This would prevent instant jumpouts, but would in most circumstances allow the unwilling to leave, though with a few boosts first. Nobody in their right mind would be chasing down ships fleeing the battlefield while there are cap ships fighting - they'd be small potatoes unless there was a particular reason to give chase and so the NPCs wouldn't bother following, and PCs looking for PvP action could follow as they like.
Just my partly thought through solution... I'm sure further discussion will either improve on it or ridicule it.
The idea has some merit. However, in your discussion there seems to be some subtle inflexion regarding the numbers of players / NPC involved in a conflict area. The OP is, in my mind, wanting to force PvP combat on other players at the indvidual player level.
The idea you have discussed seems to me to regard fleet or squadron level operations. Squadrons of players who are contesting systems could do combat in CZs. These squadrons could contain large ships that are like the The
Interdictor-class Star Destroyer in Star Wars in that they could project a local gravity well that acts like a mass lock that cannot discriminate between adversaries: they will not have the ability to pull ships out of hyperspace or supercruise. One step at a time.
Only player squadrons would have this facility. If players really desire more PvP play then it would be up to them to organise themselves into squadrons and organise and arrange such fleet contests, given appropriate support in ED from FDev. The explorers have shown their commitment to their love of exploring together: DW and DW2 are shining examples of this.
The squadron players would have to develop strategies and tactics to contend with such ships as the Interdictors; fighters covering torpedoe bombers, the latter taking out designated ships such as the Interdictors. I hope you get my drift here.
The strategic result of losing a conflict? Losing influence, control of a system for a faction supported by a squadron?
Hopefully, it would promote some great furballs and awesome videos that I would love to watch. At least the players battle chatter would be authentic!
It would make for a more exciting and, dare I say, a more
meaningful engagement of PvP combat.
It may be that scenarios could also be created to allow PvP squadron action. Let's say a faction's disabled capital ship needs to be resupplied and repaired at a certain location so it can escape an opposing faction's attempts to capture it. This is old hat; the vintage game Star Wars X-Wing game had excellent missions like this.
The trouble with this idea is that ED is fundamentally a solo game even for Open and has no squadron fleet mission system to speak of especially one to enable such imagined events described above. And then there is the instancing issues to contend with.
