This is yet another suggestion based on flawed understanding of the game.
First, we already know that the majority of players of Elite do not really care about the PvP aspect, that is information we have from FDev, just like how we know that Open is by far the most popular mode to play in, we also know that the majority of players have NOT engaged in PvP.
This would also not do anything about the current state of Gankers, they would not migrate to a server full of other PvP players, as there would be very limited amount of "easy" targets. So the only players that would realistically migrate over the players that want PvP, but that is limited amount of players, and most likely not every PvP player would like to migrate.
So now we have a separate galaxy which increases operational costs, with having to run yet another environment... This would simply drain resources from the development, and of course, it would soon come with its own demand for changes etc, so soon FDev would basically have two different games... That even further will drive costs.
So now to your later argument about this would bring back many players. This I would consider wishful thinking. What new is there to offer these returning players?
Lets see
- The galaxy would still be the same, and equally big
- There would still thousands of systems in the bubble
- With even less players than we currently have in op (remember, we expect peope to migrate from current Open to the new Open), it would be even more rare to encounter another player.
- The game would still be massively fragmented into numerous instances, like some are in super cruise, some in normal space, and they can all be in the same system and still not know about each others.
- Still the same BGS
- Still the same Power Play
- We still have time zones, and players playing around the clock, so if you play 18:00-24:00 UTC, anyone playing outside these hours would still be "invisible" to you. And as the majority of players have school/work/etc, they cannot be playing all day and all night, and even the most avid gamers, still need to sleep...
Sounds just like the current game, and yet you make it sound like it would magically make everything much more appealing for PvP community, as noone can no longer can "hide" in solo/PG...
And if we leave the current hotspots alone, founders worlds, specific Engineers and Community Goals, the likelihood to encounter other players are not that common, and what do you expect will happen if the player base is even fewer than we currently have? Remember, most players are not interested in PVP, so the majority of the current open players would not consider to migrate anyway... so that will only make this matter worse...
So the entire idea is flawed from the start, as there are to many systems and to few players to populate even the bubble. We are talking about some 20 000+ inhabited systems with over 66 000 stations, starports and outposts. not even the lastest distant worlds expedtion could place a participant in each inhabitable system in the bubble! So to have the pinnacle PvP and PvP encountes in BGS/PP, you cannot have 20 000+ systems to mess around in... you need to reduce this drastically...lets start with 50. Same with Powerplay, there way to many powers... so we need to limit this as well, for simplicty, use Powerplay mechanics and and instead use Federation, Empire and Alliance, so you have a 3 way "conflict", and players are mandatory to pick a power... so no leave option, only defect to another power..
We simply remove the Thargoids, as that is PvE, so no business on a PvP server anyway...
Now we have drastically reduced the amount of data for this mode. The BGS will be much faster to process and require alot less resources. And we can get rid of first discovered etc, aswell, what is the point anyway? Exploration is a PvE activity, so no need to waste resources on this...
So even with all these changes, it it would still more or less be the same game, and not really offer anything new... we have simply stuffed player closer together so that they are much more likely to run into each other alot more than they do today, just like you are more likely to encounter other player at the current hotspots like founders world, engineers, community goals etc.
Even if FDev did this, I highly doubt this would be a popular mode, and even the limit of 50 systems, might be to much...