How does order delay work?

[Nathan_ (OP)]

And how exactly can you order ships to use it?  Are there any indicators that an order is preceded by a delay time? Are there any other important bits of information about it? I would like to use it to have freighters wait out the construction cycle before trying to pick stuff up, and perhaps far later exploit orbital mechanics to save on fuel.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

You just add a delay time to some order you give. The time is in seconds.   It's pretty straightforward, though IMO I don't think it's worth using it purely for sploitin'. 

[DatAlien]

Does it even work? Tried it to automatical rotate my jump point pickets (Goto Jumppoint, wait a half year, go back to base, overhaule, wait almost a half year, go back to the jump point), dint work, so does anyone knows how to use it?

[Thiosk]

 I tend to always forget what I'm doing so, heh. 
This and the send message button I hardly use.

You know, though, heres how i'd use them:
Instead of running a freighter continuously, using fuel the whole time for moving sub 10%  cargo capacity, set a delay order to have it go pick it up and then rest for 6 months, before starting its loop again. 
If I could have a send message feature that would let me do something like "%n dropping off %c minerals cap'm!" where %n is the fleet name and %c is the cargo, you would get nice little messages about resource flow every six months.

Neat!

[Nathan_ (OP)]

I typically slow my tankers down to 100m/s so it takes them a long time and saves tons of fuel costs to move rather than use order delay(which I still haven't totally worked out, though due to a lack of experimentation). It does actually work though I have been able to use it.