To compensate, I would keep the ship costs cheap; especially, since people like to use multiple racial accounts, don't give up PvP points for losses of line ships, but reduce the one hex radius ban period to 30 minutes from one hour. If a new player is constantly suffering PvP losses then they need a veteran to wing with and the 30 minutes ban period can be used to regroup and find a wing.
We did this on AOTK2, nobody flew Line ships on that either
I do not think there is a rule set anywhere that will keep the elite players out of the specialty ships unless you start charging them PP by the hour to rent the uber ship or something onerous like that. Have seen this trend in both SFCOP and SFC3 dynas. Everyones goal is to get into the most uber ship possible.
Best you can do is reduce the impact of specialty ships with max. heavy iron limits, fleeting rule limits, no VP scores for kills, but VP losses for losses, etc. People will always use the best ships available to dominate the hot zones, but if you can counter this by ganging up on the specialty ships and bagging them for VCs then that's fun.
Granted that people will naturally gravitate towards the best specialty ships, it does the new player no good if they can go back in the hex immediately for another disadvantageous PvP fight to lose more VP points. It's better to take a breather and find a vet to wing with to go get the specialty ships. All the while, the new player does not have to worry about losing VPs if they are flying line ships to start with.
When it comes to crunch-time in the hot zones, the RMs are gonna push the rulesets and shiplist to the limit in order to send in the best players with the best ships they can find to control the hexes they need to meet the current rounds VCs.