I have tanker/supply ship that I want to give repeating orders to for moving to and refueling/resupplying space stations in Sol.
But I can't do it.
I can only give it orders to Join & Refuel/Resupply.
But I don't want it to join the target fleet.
I just want it to move to the target fleet, Refuel/Resupply the target fleet, and move on.
(If it joins the target fleet, I have to babysit the transfer, then detach the ship and re-enter the orders. But I want this to be automated.)
Am I overlooking another option that allows this to be automated?
The easiest form of automation (for now) might be to return to the Jump Tender paradigm, and have the 'supply' ship (with fuel, maintenance, and possibly ordnance) as part of the fleet, but wait on each jump point as the survey is conducted by sub-fleets. When the survey is done they all meet up at the next jump point and refuel & resupply (& possibly re-arm) before jumping. When the supply ship runs low, it can return to a major colony to fill up while the subfleets survey.
The downside, of course, is that now you need one supply ship per survey fleet.
That's a really good way to approach it. I'll probably do something like that for the time being.
My hope is to be able to position "Pit Stop" fleets at all gated jump points and give cycling orders to tankers to deliver fuel to the pit stops.
In theory, this can reduce the fuel range required for ship designs that make intersystem trips. If refuelling is available at every jump point, ships only need enough range to move from one JP to the next.
I can set all of that up now, but I have to manually perform the refuelling every time a tanker arrives to deliver fuel to a pit stop.