I think it would be good to have PVP warzones that you join a side, dock and get given a small fighter to fight in. Everyone could have the same access to equipment choices (possibly modified by reputation) and nobody would risk their hard-earned ship.
I think it is the cost of PVP that puts people off, but if you could sign on for a side in an existing conflict and be provided with a no-frills imp/fed/Indy fighter to test yourself against other players more people would take it up. These could be tied to story events to help determine outcomes.
How I see it is you dock at a station, accept the mission, then get switched to a fighter that auto-pilots to a capital ship outside the station. Cue cutscene and now you are docked in the capital ship in a PVP instance. Death would have you respawn on the cap ship. Battles could be persistent or split into rounds with a ticket system for each fighter destroyed. AI ships could keep things balanced to avoid waiting for a full instance. Capital ships could be driven off or destroyed for bonus victory.
I like the fact that death is always expensive in ED, it encourages PvP within the game lore. I wouldnt want to have any kind of "arena" sub game in ED. People who want to PvP have to contribute to the game ecosystem to get it and thats a good think in my book. When fights do happen they are more exiting because the players have some skin in the game so to speak. The lack of death consequences is what makes games like planetside ultimately boring (although I think it was a great game in other respects).
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