Sounds like you won.

The big problems I see with this area as I see it are

As you have said...mixing a PVE and mission area not a good idea. Only people that really like it are those that go there to pvp because people prepared for pvp are too difficult for them. they only want to kill PVErs.

My other gripe is numbers...in this day and age you should not go into any pvp zone in ANY game and be outnumbered 8 to 1. is it really that difficult to look at the numbers and say no that's too many from one side, or simply allow say 1 fed in for every Klingon and only allow more if numbers allow....unfair balance, simple just put some people on hold until the numbers allow. The resets are the perfect time for this.
being seriously outnumbered like that has happened regularly to me and tbh just isn't fun and this is a game after all.

Make friends - go with them... you won't be alone.

If you're looking for a single player instance where you can easily farm... Ker'rat is not it.

If you're a Klink, try N'Vat, never any Feds there, same rewards and same soft, easy Borg targets.

Hell, most of the time you've got the run of the place-nobody's there, everyone is at Kerrat.

It's funny how I keep forgetting that's even there. That might work for farming on my KDF guys... there's no point in hitting Ker'rat for farming on my Fed, there's so many faster and potentially less means to do it. Now if only my Feds had some Empire Defense to zip through for Dil...meh.

I've been away from my PC for almost a week... I'm having Ker'rat withdrawals

I found it useful for farming up resources (esp. EC) on my post-S7 Engineer, without the temptation to go Fed Hunting that generally sidelined me in Kerrat-plus no spawn-campers so it does go faster.

Of course, if it turns popular, it's a great way to gin up some Klink-on-Klink, the entry simply assigns you a side there, so PvP is possible there, just that it's so empty so much of the time it doesn't really happen much.

Still, even more than the restart respawn issue - even more than borg hiding inside of objects - even more than stretchy cubes and rubberband spheres - the thing that's always bothered me the most about Ker'rat has been latency issues there.

I'm talking about where you're watching a slideshow in Ker'rat. You hit sector, it's fine. You run some random mission, it's fine. You hit up SB24 with all those objects on the screen - and - it's fine. You got back to Ker'rat, and it's like watching a slideshow.

It's rare - no doubt everything else happens far more often - all sorts of things wrong there... but that's definitely the most annoying for me.

Ker'rat is brilliant. The zone chat is among the most entertaining in game, it serves as a place to test drive new builds, and as a nice waiting area before Arena kicks off. It also allows you to hunt in a more natural and organic way rather than a death match.

The zone only resets often when you've got one or two power-farmers, and they're often easy to bring to heel once you figure out who they are and consistently gun them down. After all, part of the objective is to stop the other side, and anything flying on blue team's a big juicy dilithium pinata anyhow.

One element that appeared then vanished was the ability to change instances though. I think that went a ways towards people being able to have the Ker'rat experience they want, rather than one dictated by the majority at any one time.

Regarding it's being a refuge for people afraid to take on "real" PVP, when you're on the wrong end of a numerical disparity it's certainly more challenging to score a kill. It requires far more thought stalking your target then dropping them at the opportune moment. It's a case where proper planning and strategy can trump gear/skill load out. And is anything funnier than nudging a ship using FAW in amongst some cubes with TBR or PSW?

It was kind of funny last night, I was on one of my KDF and the Feds left me alone as I was on a "special" mission. I was dropping plasma on the stretchy Borg. Everybody wanted them gone because they're so annoying. It was definitely kind of funny... when it was done, they went back to killing me.