Wishing for refuel fleet independently option

[jacozilla]

Came so late to this game i doubt there will be another patch, but if there is, would love an option on fleets screen to enable AI refueling logic to either be entire fleet at same time (default that it is right now), and refuel independently.

Right now, if the entire fleet has nearly full fuel and is on station defending a system in fleet defend posture, but a single ship is low, the entire fleet will move off station to refuel just that one ship. AND causes docking bay overhead because all those nearly full fuel ships will also try to dock and refuel. So i tend to design gas stations with massive overkill in docking bays

But primary irk is the entire defense fleet moving off station to refuel a single ship. Would love an option to control refuel as group or independent of assigned fleet.

[Bingeling]

There is no magic bullet for this, but realize the following behaviors:

When you give an order to a fleet, all the ships of the fleet gets that order.
You can however, give orders to single ships of the fleet, but be aware it will be "overwritten" if you give a fleet order.

Fleet members with no order default to moving to the fleet leader.

So given this, I can do things like: I have a larger fleet, after refueling 2 ships are still low on fuel. I give the fleets its new order and then tell each of the two low fuel ships to refuel. They will follow to the leader once they have refueled. I must be careful, though, not to give another fleet order until the two refuelers have filled up their tanks. And this won't work if there is no fuel anywhere close to where they start out.

This does not prevent fuel shortages from being very annoying.

Other ways to abuse this fleet behavior. "A circle of interest" pops up after killing a pirate base. There is no explorer or anything nearby, but there is a larger fleet sitting at a colony in the area. Tell a single fleet member which is not the leader, to go to the point to find the alien ship or whatever is there. Once it has completed its move, it will move back to the fleet leader. Sometimes I can give 2-3 fleet members of a main battle fleet the order to kill an enemy mine. It works the same way. Make sure you don't send the fleet leader away, though, the whole fleet will follow and stay there.

Or I am waging war. I have an "Invasion fleet" running a single cruiser as fleet leader (with no troop compartment) and 15 troop transports. The fleet has refueled at a resupply ship and is about to attack multiple colonies.
The fleet leader does nothing, he just sits there. I order single ships to do colony attacks, 2 transports for each minor colony for instance, and maybe the final 8 to attack the major colony in the area. Of course I have already attacked the colonies with fighting fleets so the systems are "safe". The transports will drop their troops, and then return to the fleet leader at the resupply ship rather than hang around in the system where they dropped their troops. New conquests are never good spots for troop transports, it is likely that enemy ships arrive and they may be caught up in fighting.

And when war is over, and I want to load troops and return to the capital? Keep in mind that the troops are on my new conquests. First refuel the fleet to prevent single transports from running out. Then give the fleet "load troops" order, and the transports scatter (to various load locations). Then tell the fleet leader to move to the capital. After picking up the troops, each transport will then move to the fleet leader at the capital. And this is why the fleet leader should not be able to carry troops, he will ignore the load troops order and do nothing.