It would indeed be a challenge solely because of the ingenuity shown by those who just wish to be disruptive, I don't have answers, although 'Smart' Weapons would prevent the 'accidental' shots hitting a non-targeted player - removing collision damage whilst retaining the ability to use ramming tactics against NPC's is a toughie...
Other MMO's must have had to solve the issues, knowledge can be shared, so approaches to 'getting around' devious thought may already exist.
(Not that I believe for one second that Frontier would take any notice of this suggestion - as I fondly hope no notice is taken by the other requests to change my game to please someone else)
Some of the common practices I feel would break the immersion, like removing player collisions, and being able to fly through player ships, and how woudl this map to Private Groups? would we get "options" or private groups to make these like Open PvE or Open PvP?
So what I fear is that the things we need todo is to detrimental to the game...
I keep thinking of this player who was really trusting, and would not believe how far some players would go to just be mean to other players, but I explained to him the reason why we have speed limits around the station and in his world this should not be a thing, as you simply should not do that.
So I do like the notion of Open PvE, but I fear the game we would get...
And a fully Open PvP server is also bad, as limited player population and to many systems make for a lousy chance encounter rate, if the server is all about PvP, then atleast it should make it easier for it to happen. So I have seen a couple of Open PvP alternatives that basically take what other MMO's seems to be doing, PvP areas.. and we could the same in Elite, find some area, and permit lock it, So enter this area, you need to actively choose to visit the PvP area. it could as simple as insta transfer into this zone, from where ever you are, you ahve access to all your ships, and into the PvP zone you go. and when done, you simply leave the PvP zone, and are back in the ship where you left of. Just like how many other MMO's do it. So for those who are into PvP, you have your zone, that is restricted and have its own zone specific BGS, and Powerplay etc.