RELIEF ORDERS!
So, basically I should be able to give a TG the order "Relieve TG #0001" which would make that TG go to wherever TG #0001 is and when it gets there trigger an order for "Upon Relief Move To XXX" in TG #0001's queue.
Basically this would let you do the following for a stationary picket:
1st Survey Squadron
(Default Orders) Survey Nearest Asteroid
Upon Relief Move To Earth
Refuel From Colony Earth
Resupply From Colony Earth
Overhaul (Rewind Clock) Earth
Relieve 2nd Survey Squadron
Cycle
2nd Survey Squadron
(Default Orders) Survey Nearest Asteroid
Upon Relief Move To Earth
Refuel From Colony Earth
Resupply From Colony Earth
Overhaul (Rewind Clock) Earth
Relieve 1st Survey Squadron
Cycle
In this instance the ships would simply trade off stations but continue the overall asteroid survey mission. You could basically have this mission go on forever without any input from the player until it runs out of asteroids. It would be great if you could add a specific delay to the Relieve order as well so that you can time it to roughly match crew rest needs.
The issue I see here is the linear way that orders are carried out. The default order would just queue up one survey location and them move on to the next order in line, so the "Upon Relief" order would have to be coded so that its not activated or moved beyond until a relieving ship with the "Relief" order gets there to activate it. In fact it if it could be coded so the ship cycles orders queued before the "Upon Relief" order until that order is activated you could have a warship on a constant patrol route.
You could have a less complicated order like "Relieve TG #0001 and send to XXX" with the relieving TG assuming whatever orders are left in the queue of TG #0001 and TG #0001's original orders cancelled and replaced with whatever location was in the relieve order, which could give you:
1st Defense Squadron
Relieve 2nd Defense Squadron and send to Earth
2nd Defense Squadron
Move to Mars
Move to Titan
Move to Waypoint XXX
Move to Waypoint XXX
Move to Venus
(Cycle)
In this case the mission would continue (though perhaps from the top of the list if you can't track where in the cycled queue the target TG is at) and the relieved TG would go back to base. Unfortunately you would have to manually send out the relief TGs and queue of follow on orders like refuel and resupply but its still less intensive.
Lots of issues with this, but the gist is in a game that keeps such close track of fuel, supplies, maintenance clocks, ordinance and crew rest an option to have different groups of ship cycle between the same mission automatically could be a micro management life saver.