Okay so here's my thought process, we have all seen two massive fleets, one brown and one blue, about to collide and hauled ass over ASAP to see if we can tag the losing fleet before they run to possibly pick up some free credits and ships.
But, imagine if NPC battles lasted 5-10 seconds on the galaxy map depending on the size of the battle so we could fly in and introduce ourselves mid battle! Sure, we would be outgunned and without buoys to start but we would also have the element of surprise! Can't you just see two massive capital ships beating on each other and out of nowhere a third faction shows up on the side of the map with a strike team of 3-4 bomber wings decimating one, only to disappear into the fog of war? Or two fleets hammering on each other only to realize both sides have just lost contact with their carriers who seem to have been obliterated by some unseen force?
It would pose a very interesting risk/reward system because we could fly in at the right time to a messy battle and clean out both fleets or fly in too early and get destroyed by two sides that have yet to collide.
The obvious criticism is that this would SUCK if the player was shooting it out with some crappy pirates and a massive fleet warps in to instakill both sides, so perhaps when the player is in a battle the world map freezes like it works now, so nobody can drop in uninvited.
And the other obvious problem is that 3 faction battles would probably be hell to code for the AI, but what do I know
TL:DR ( 3 factions fighting at once, read for more info)
All thoughts, comments, criticisms, and critiques are welcome!