Fleet Warfare.
Fleet warfare is a radical upgrade to the existing warfare system. In fleet warfare legions will be able to from fleets to fight targets.

Fleet structure.
Each fleet is made up of up to 50 ships, as Follows:
5 squads, made up of a maximum of 5 ships. Each squad will have a squad leader. More on that later.
10 Squads make up a fleet. The fleet also has an overall leader.
Additionally, up to 3 fleets, from different legions that have a battle pact, will be able to form up into a 150 ship Armada. An Armada will also have an overall leader.

Forming a fleet.
Firstly, legion rules will include a new option: Form a fleet, with the options: All members, Officers and Leaders, Leaders only.
If a player meets the requirements for forming a fleet, they will have the option to do so on the battle tab. They will automatically be the fleet leader, however they have to option to demote themselves to a squad leader, or member position, and assign a new fleet leader.
The fleet leader can send an invite to legions that they have a battle pact with, asking them to join the fleet, and form an Armada. The leader of the original fleet assigns who the overall commander of the Armada is.
Players from that legion can open a fleet dialogue from the battle tab, and see a list of fleets that their legion has (Normally only one). If they select to join the fleet, they will be put in a member position. Squad leaders (Selected by the fleet leader) may move players from one squad to another.
Now the fleet is formed up and ready for battle.

Fleet battle.
On the battle tab, there will be a new a new section, called Fleets. From here a fleet leader (Or an Armada leader, if applicable) can engage another fleet, or Armada, as applicatable. However fleet warfare is meant to be more organised that random skirmishes, so there will be a method of engaging a fleet, or Armada from a specific legion, more on that later.)
Firstly, the fleet or armada leader will assign enemy squads to their fleet’s squads. This will be indicated on the squad leaders dialogue in some way. The squad leader can then assign specific targets to their squad members (Or multiple members to one target…). The squad member will then see his target indicated in some way. However he does not have to attack it, he may attack another target is he wishes, though your fellow legion/fleet members will frown upon this.
The individual attack/defence of ships then comes into play. When a ship fires upon another, he will deal damage according to the existing formula of his attack, verses the enemies defence. However the damage he is delt, by the enemy is different. When he fires, if the enemy player is online, and currently targeting a different ship, then the aggressor will incur no damage, as he is not being fired upon. If the defendant is online, and targets the aggressor, then the aggressor will be delt damage based on the existing formulas.
If players from a fleet are not online, then their attack power will be pooled and fired at all members of the squad that they have been assigned (not the ship) equally. IE, if 2 players are not online, and one has 5,000 attack, and the other 10,000, then 15,000 attack will be pooled, and divided up against the enemy fleet. If the enemy fleet is 10 players, then each will be ‘attacked’ with 1,500 attack, and delt damage as if they 1,500 attack was from a single ship. They offline players can still be targeted and fired upon as normal.
Although many fleets will feel different about what defeat is, for the purpose of badges, defeat will be considered as when 80% of the enemy ships have been disabled at the same time.
Once a fleet is attacked, they defending fleet will be informed and will be able to open the dialogue that allow then to attack the fleet that engaged them, in an identical matter to the attacking fleet.

New fleet related abilitys/options.
To incorporate fleet warfare, there will be a number of new options, some available to certain races and professions, some granted from modules, and some from mission unlocks.
Examples of racial abiltys:
Aerlen:
Fleet aid ability – Jamming pulse: emit a pulse of electrostatic energy, shrouding allied ships. Grants your fleets ship a 2% bonus to defence can be stacked by having multiple Aerlen ships. Effect lasts 15 minutes, and has a cool down of 30 minutes. Costs 100 energy to use.
Self aid ability – Localised Jamming: Emmits a jamming field around your ship, boosting your defence by 100% for 5 minutes. Cool down of 20 minutes.

Human:
Dan will have to come up with this.. I couldn’t.
Inegron:
Offensive Energy Transfer: Steals energy from the target ship, at a rate of 1% of the enemy’s energy per minute, for 15 minutes. In addition, the amount of energy you steal cannot exceed 50% of your total capacity, If it does exceed this, then the transfer will stop. Cooldown of 1 hour.
Konqul:
Strategic remodulation: Boosts the attack of ships in your legion by 2% for 10 minutes. Cool down of 30 minutes
Stable Hyperchatege: Boost your attack power by 100% for 5 minutes. Cool down 1 hour.
Vygiod:
Again, No clues, Dan’s job.
And so forth for all the other races, professions…

Weapon reload/recharge
Due to the nature of fleet warfare, rather than costing energy to attack, weapons will have a reload time, with will be fast for low damage weapons, and slow for powerful weapons (As a rule of thumb – perhaps some NPC/mission ones could differ?)

New weapons system:
To complement fleet warfear, a new weapon would be introduced: Missile launchers. Players would research new, more capable launchers. Better missiles to fire would also be researched (In various trees: Weapons tree give conventional missles, energy tree gives anti-energy missiles that neutralise energy, Shield research gives specialised anti-shield weapons that perform better vs shields and so forth….) Diffent missiles could only be launched by different launchers (IE fancy ones can’t be fired from a simple tire 1 launcher). The launcher can be used outside of fleet warfear. Players have to buy the missiles for the launchers, after researching them, shot by shot, the price will reflect the performance. Perhaps have special missiles available from missions. Missiles would be fired separately from the main weapons, would be far more powerful, but would take a long time to reload after being fired (Firing costs energy, but they also have to reload as well). No doubt this would lead to a build of ships that use only missiles to deliver a MASSIVE blow, but then have to spend ages reloading. When attacking with missiles, you will not suffer any damage from an automated counter attack, as you do with current weapons.
Finding specific fleets
As discussed above, there is a way to find specific fleets. This is to buy an arty for, say, 5 red badges, 5 blues, and 5 silvers. This arty is one use. To use, you select the legion you wish to target, and it will give a MASSIVE increase in the chances of finding a fleet from that legion, in the fleet part of the battle tab, for 12 hours. If you succeed, you will also get a notification in the news feet, with a link to click to see their fleet. You may not always succeed with this.
Leader bonuses:
The leader of a armada/fleet/squad will be able to pass down passive bonuses to all the ships below then in the command chain. IG Armada leaders to all members, Fleet leaders to all members of the fleet, and Squad leader to all members of the squad. The bonuses will be passive – such as attack, defence… They will be automatically applied, and will last until the fleet is disbanded. Leaders will unlock the various bonuses they pass down in various ways: Missions, NPC defeats…

Obviousaly dan could play around with the idea to add anything else he wants - perhaps things that allow specific builds like Logistics ships, support ships, gunboats...

The idea is a very good one. But I think it'd be a lot more beneficial if Dan did implement this to implement a much simpler system to start with as it's so complex. The slowly as time goes by he adds more and more features like abilities. The end result could be even bigger and more full of content than this idea, and we would get it as a slow trickle, so something to look forward to over time and we don't get bored and start demanding new content straight away.

+1 but 5*10=50 but you say a fleet is 10squads 10*10=100???? please explain

+1, a good idea, but as epic said it will be have to be downed a bit to stop it being too complex, so at the start maybe a fleet/group of either 3 or 5 ships (should be small enough) without any of the abilities. As for the reload time, maybe, but it should cost some amount of energy as well, and i personally think that everyone in the fleet should be online to take part.

if someone in the fleet gets disabled would they be able to repair on a slower/longer timer or would they be kicked out of the fleet and stay out until the battle is over?

Middle 'o the night when i wrote it up, I meant 10 squads of 5 ships. Sorry.

The idea is that something like this will happen.. I'm not quite sure how you would define victory/defeat in this - Particularly if you could just repair and hop back in the fight, However if you don't, the battles will be short. Result: Dan can think it up.