I agree the timer mechanic needs changed, as it stands just now, it has become stagnant, everyone setting timers to stupidO'clock so there are no more port battles making the game stale and leaving players with nothing more to pvp than griefing. It's BORING
The fact you have realised this I acknowledge and the fact you've come up with a suggestion at least, but, it would need a lot of work, the biggest one I can see straight away, only 1 attack every 12 hours or so would be needed. Or you could just rotate fleet after fleet after fleet, farming xp from ai, or forcing a smaller defender nation to spend 12 hours a day defending one port (if owner is offline), that, would drive people out of the game, or destroy nations, that would never be a good thing.