I posted this as an idea for the upcoming expansion.  I have no idea if it is in the works or not though.  I'm guessing no.

Yes. This does lead to interesting things, though... Missile Barrage + Malice + Shield Regen + Animosity + Mass Transcendence... Factor in the Vasari Fleet Cap + tech + Lower ship cost + Industrial Juggernaut and you got yourself a fairly unstoppable trio... And don't forget Novalith Cannon + Phase Missiles against TEC with planet shields...

I forsee a lot of minmaxing where players would produce units for each other to roll out with "perfect" fleets. I agree that people should be able to take over for missing players but total shared fleet control is a bit much.

Instead of being able to share tech with each other, money spent by allies on research should provide you with a discount when researching in the same tree. Being able to give away free tech would be a bit too powerful.

Why not just make these things user selectable?  Then everyone is happy.

yes.. alot of control - but frankly most people can't control what they have now.. just because there is a race fleet mix - it doesn't necessarily mean one person can play a mixed fleet well.

It may give one person alot of control - but frankly a alliance is not possible without people who trust and play well together - in a 3v3 etc even sitting in the same room as we do, or using teamspeak/ventrillo there still is ISSUES controlling fleets together.

My offence sucks frankly- I tend to use the hammer approach. If the 2lb hammer fails use a 5lb hammer and so forth. I understand the tech, the economics, but militarily I don't have it.

Yes "user select" would be ideal.

selecting an Admiral or fleet controller or deselecting it can be done by the fleet owner at "anytime".

I feel giving temp fleet control to allies may run into some gameplay balance issues, I'm just not sure what, how, or why, it just seems tricky.

Here's two other ideas.  One is simply giving the selected fleet permanently to another player.  This would essentially be the same as giving resources through the diplomacy screen, but the receiving player must have the available fleet supply to accept the fleet.  Honestly, I don't know why you can't give allies fleets in diplomacy, it makes perfect sense to me.  Technology, on the other hand would be problematic.  Players dividing research amongst themselves seems too fast and too easy (not to mention it causes problems for allies who are not the same race, giving a HUGE advantage to allies who do play the same race)

Secondly, I always wondered why Ironclad didn't allow two players to play as one empire.  One player can do research, construct fleets, and develop planets while the other player can pick fights and micromanage battles, or both players can manage fleets to fight two fronts more effectively at the same time.  It may not be a popular feature, considering that (from what it seems), multiplayer matches never last long enough to develop large, intricate empires that would warrant two humans managing each one.  I just think it would be interesting and provide incentive for less skilled players to enter the multiplayer scene.