4Game

I'm sure we can agree that CQC is not really used.
But I think I know a way they can repurpose the mechanic.

Imagine you are flying in a combat zone, then you hear THE sound, you know the one for capital class signature detected. Two carriers drop in and a bunch of fighters start launching out of them.

Normally this is still easy peasy, but these fighters are piloted by players who volunteered at the station counter to fly instead of go on foot into a conflict zone.

For the fighter pilot, they choose which fighter to get ahead of time. Being military grade they may be "enhanced" compared to the ones we can buy for our ships. Each "respawn" they can choose to change fighter types if they want.

To the fighter pilot, they load in during the carrier jump, being greeted with a launch bay and hyperspace sounds. As soon as jump is complete, their fighter is catapulted out into space.

Thier objective is to destroy a certain amount of targets on the enemy carrier, when this is done, the enemy carrier jumps out, match over.

This may seem like an easy endeavor, but you would have to contend with enemy fighters, carrier defenses, defending your carrier, regular ships and possibly other players who are in the combat zone. (I could see community goal combat zones generating a lot of 3rd parties joining.)

To me this would be one heck of a combat zone.
A challenge for both regular commanders and fighter pilots as well. Facing off in a PvE and PvP sphere. Sure I could nuke a fighter in a short time in my ship, but have you ever fought a swarm of bees?