SmallKiwi

This is not the problem that you think it is. The changes I propose would make players' fleet ships a valuable resource, of similar value to the ship that the player themselves pilot. Forcing players to purchase fleet ships from the market will increase demand for those (smaller) ships and drive the prices up. If players want to inefficiently tackle missions with just their AI lieutenants, they'll risk losing those ships and the investments they represent. By opening fleets up to everyone the game PVP battles will not be negatively affected. If anything, low level players are disproportionately useful in most circumstances so long as they have a fleet of ships at their command. The proposed solution would fix that.

I don't think this would give anyone an "army of ai". Maybe 1 or 2 extra ships. And it certainly wouldn't be better than simply piloting a single larger ship. Simple fix to one possible issue: no lieutenant ship could be bigger than the flagship (that's you). If people want to play the game like a slow RTS and avoid combat themselves, I'd say that's fine. What you suggest is not going to be an efficient way to make gold and xp. Remember, a feature like this will create a market for smaller ships. Smaller ships would therefore increase in market value. Your fleet ships would not simply be cheap fodder to be wasted for easy gold and xp, they'd be real investments.

Why is company not an option? Aside from national navies, the most obvious non-governmental entities operating in the West Indies during this period were trade companies.

2 problems 1) Low & decreasing demand for lower level ships as the game matures 2) Fleet system non existent after level 3. Solution Players can purchase ships, and use their crew allotment (based on player rank) to man those additional ships with AI lieutenants & crewmen. A level 2 player might only have access to enough crew to man a Cutter with a cutter escort, but a level 4 player could crew both a Snow & a cutter. Obviously this might require a small rework of the crew allotment available at each level, and could change the balance of some missions, but it would increase market demand for smaller ships, increase the total number of ships present in battles (always a good thing!) and could make for more interesting trading. Traders could hire multiple trade ships, or warship escorts if necessary, and increase shipping capacity without necessarily needing to add larger and larger cargo ships.