From version 2.50, it is possible for ships to get repairs, ammunition, units, and deployables at resupply ships belonging to their faction.
Resupply Ships and Capabilities
Two types of ships can be used to provide supplies for other ships:
Carriers
and Fleet Auxiliary Ships.
Carriers are able to repair and rearm ships that can dock at them. In general, these are ships that are of size-class S or M.
Fleet Auxiliary Ships are able to repair and rearm ships of all size-classes including Carriers and other Fleet Auxiliary Ships. Ships of this type also advertise trade offers to acquire resources that it needs as long as it is actively providing supplies.
Activating Fleet Auxiliary Ships
While carriers will always repair and rearm fighters subordinate to them as needed, fleet auxiliary ships must be activated to make them available to ships that require repair and resupply. This also instructs fleet auxiliary ships to acquire resources that they need to rearm ships.
To activate fleet auxiliary ships, either:
- Assign the ship to be subordinate to another ship with Assignment: Supply Fleet.
- Or give it the behaviour to Supply Fleet, and specify a location.
Click on the field labeled Destination: and click on the desired location on the map.
Don't forget to click Confirm to lock in the new behaviour.
This will cause your fleet auxiliary ship to start acquiring resources and will make it available to other ships that you own for resupply.
Note that this step is not necessary for Carriers.
Supplying Resupply Ships
While repairs do not require resources; ammunition, units and deployables are built to order so, in order to fulfill orders for these items, resupply ships need certain resources.
Determining what resupply ships need:
To find out what a resupply ship needs, right-click on the ship and click on Information. The wares that it needs and the corresponding target amounts can be found in the Storage section of the Info menu for that ship.
Supplying resupply ships:
- You can manually order the resupply ship to purchase resources that it requires.
Note that the amount of scanning arrays is indicated in the trade menu in parentheses.
This method is available to both Carriers and Fleet Auxiliary Ships. - You can manually order one of your own freighters to deliver resources that it requires.
The number of scanning arrays that the Nomad needs is also indicated here in parentheses.
This method is available to both Carriers and Fleet Auxiliary Ships. - You can also tell your resupply ship to Get Supplies.
This will order the ship to look for trades on its own and buy all of the resources that it needs. As long as you know of trades fairly close to the ship that are selling the resources that it needs, this will result in a series of trade orders to purchase these resources. You can verify that the ship is going off to trade by looking at that ship's Order Queue.
Note the maximum gate distance over which the ship will look for trades at the bottom of this image. This gate distance depends on the Piloting skill of the ship's captain.
This is the fastest method to instruct your ship to automatically get resources. However, this is also usually the most expensive.
This method is available to both Carriers and Fleet Auxiliary Ships. - You can allow the resupply ship to acquire resources on their own.
- Fleet auxiliary ships advertise trade offers for the resources that they need. Free traders will occasionally entertain these offers and spontaneously fly to these ships to deliver resources. Do note, however, that resupply ships deactivate these trade offers when they engage in certain activities such as going into combat. To verify that these trade offers are active, right-click on the ship's icon on the map and select Trade Offers.
This brings up a menu that details all of the wares and amounts that your resupply ship is trying to purchase. This is the most hands-off method, but also tends to be the slowest.
Note that this method is only available to Fleet Auxiliary Ships.