It would be a nice touch if players could set up clans. It would come with a custom flag that you could have on your ship. If you ran into other players with the same flag you could team up, obviously the chances of them being in the same server as you would be rare but would be great if it ever happened. It would also be fun checking the flags of other ships to see if it's a dangerous clan with good players, which would let you know to be careful.
Other points:
1 - max 100 players per clan to avoid players bumping into each other and teaming too often in game if a massive clan was set up.
2 - if rare did this they would need to create a flag creation tool and make sure to moderate for offensive flags being made.
