I suspect this will primarily help most servers' spawn sector by removing abandoned builds. Collision Detection sounds unrelated, as it is very unlikely that the average player will accidentally run into a core in open space. Collision detection sounds off-topic, unless you happen to know that the dev team is keen on collision development right now.
The sector would not need to be loaded in. Each entity could have a "last interaction" date and time saved somewhere. Then at periodic intervals, the server runs through its full entity list one at a time, doing heavy damage to all entities which have interaction timestamps older than a server-set time limit.
I recommend that the server destroy entire chunks when damaging abandoned ships, especially in unloaded sectors. Maybe remove entire docked entities. Single-chunk small-ships like single cores will be wiped out on the first pass. Larger builds might take longer to wipe out, but if the faction block is in the chunk removed, the rest of that entity becomes a source of blocks for anyone who finds and salvages the derelict. Changing the color of the radar diamond of abandoned ships would help identify these abandoned ships and encourage salvaging operations.
When running through these entity checks, the server should do some basic checks, to make sure it is not already overloaded with other things, like a big battle or massive salvage operation. And of course, there should be a server setting that changes the interval of this regular check or turns it off completely.
