KnightHawk75
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Joined: 11/15/2018
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AndrewJ has the quick and dirty answer (group them), which works but only in certain situations.
If they grouped and at different fuel levels usually the default system will attempt to equalize the fuel levels by not fueling the one with more fuel for awhile till they are equal. This also assumes units are the same with same loadout and can be grouped, or for that matter that neither are already members of other groups.
The simple answer for the simple "player side" situation where no existing groups are involved but the loadouts are different is to micro manage the first unit, once it's taken enough "u" key it and assign it back back to the original, or RTB it to get it to disconnect and then assign it back. If this is AI situation....and there are other group members and missions involved it can get involved, and arguably complicated depending on the exact desired behavior, and on how much you are will to "cheat" realism or not. There is also a situation where the above might not work in the gui for rtb'ing strikemission members who have no weapons left where you can't get them back into the strike mission till they land (at least not via the gui - you can in lua) due to some newer range\weapon calc error dialog that is probably meant to help people but is really annoying when you know what you are doing, wish it was just a warning.
Incoming TMI stop reading here.
quote:
ORIGINAL: DWReese
What Rain08 says is true, you can do it manually. But, you don't have to send them RTB. You can send them on to wherever, if you like. It would be nice if they didn't always take on a full tank.
Perhaps you could do something with Lua, but I don't know.
Doug
DWReese,
It depends, if you're just looking to disconnect some random single aircraft from refueling sure, you can do that in 1 or 2 lines. If it's more than that, it can get involved because while you can start a refuel action using ScenEdit_SetUnit({guid=u.guid,refuel=true}) there really needs to be a simple ScenEdit_SetUnit({guid=u.guid,refuel=false}) without losing prior assignments when missions and groups are involved, as the later command doesn't exist and the workarounds often lose something in the process of using them. Having the above (false) version would be helpful, though it doesn't solve most the issues that come up it could save a step or two for more simple cases (avoiding rtb and mission assignment changes). Keep in mind refueling any member of the group actually refuels the whole group, similarly disengaging one group member from refueling disengages them all.
To expand a little more on what I mean by losing something.
There is a sort of work around by changing mission assignments (while actually refueling, but not during heading to refuel) or rtb method (works in either case) to trigger a refuel disconnect. BUT the fact that when group membership is involved rtb'ing causes group dismemberment on the unit it's called on, and when using the 'change mission' trick on a single member in a group it actually applies to the group, same as does triggering a refuel on any member as already mentioned.
I've run into where I simply wanted everyone to leave the tanker with a specific amount of fuel -/+ a few kg, or take only X amount each, or only tank for X amount of time, or where I wanted a large group to actually split itself among multiple tankers at same time because together they were too large to actually have a net + of fuel due to the diluted rate among the larger number (see helpful tip below).
Another was the headache where I wanted to more "for-realies" simulate refueling where each actually had to be at the tanker in the "refueling" state - instead of group membership meaning the first guy 80nm ahead of the other 3 gets to the tanker first and also starts refueling all group members no matter if they've made it to the tanker yet or not (assuming they're at the level of the first group member, if not it'll wait awhile till it equalizes or the tanker runs out). I know why that exists as the default system, it abstracts and simplified things more for the average player in the average scene. But sometimes it throws a monkey wrench into things, and sometimes it's quite a PITA to get around.
To do it right like that and to do so safely (when it comes to groups) you gotta record the group members and group name, record any uninherited group doctrine and wra, and mission name, save the original set course if any, detach everything from the group, refuel each unit to the tanker desired (spreading them as equally as possible amount those available if more than 1), wait till you know everyone in former group is done refueling (or done to the point you want them to disconnect at). All which you need a mini-subsystem for tracking that and checking it constantly. Then when deemed completed, make a call to reassign a mission (you can use a dummy mission, but using the one it's already assigned works just the same) causing the disconnect, reapply saved un-inherited group doctrine and wra and then apply the previous the course to the group. Now you can skirt some of that in some cases depending on exactly what the specific case may be but that was the jist of what I had to do for a hey every go tank up to 80%\take on X amount of fuel then disconnect and continue on with prior assignment situation. I could provide more detail for anyone who actually wants it but I'm already typing more than I intended atm.
Sometimes it's easier to just cheat it a bit, and set the fuel to where you want it (dead easy in and of itself) and take the total given out from the tanker(s) involved and live with the cheated time or fuel to get to the tanker savings, or account for the cheat and offset fuel based on distance to tanker from units involved and their burn rates for said mileage. More involved part if doing things on the AI side is determining\detecting when you actually might need to invoke it such in the first place and doing the fuel estimation for the tanker to get home.
Off topic but related to refueling tips
Tip:
Don't make large bomber groups where long distances and refueling is involved and expect to be able to gain fuel, they'll all dog-pile 1 tanker at a time and you'll waste more time then needed, and fuel, if they are following the bombers. 
An example is say you have b1's headed from HI or the mainland toward south china sea, and you want to top them off on the way say say west of HI. Say there 8 or 12 bombers and 4 tankers. If you have 8 bombers in a group, (actually if you have more than 6 b1's with a pylon loadout of lrsm's), you'll get gas but you'll be net losing gas as all 8 will draw from one tanker at a time. In and of itself that's not always an huge issue. But you'll also take a longer delay due to speed while draining each tanker one at a time, and you'll waste gas from the other 3 tankers for their own needs while they travel with you waiting to be used and getting further from home (say pearl) a double whammy. Better to have 4 groups of 2 or 3 each, each hitting 1 of the 4 tankers all at basically the same time, they'll net-gain and do so much faster, and you'll save time and some some gas in the tankers which is more the bombers can drink up in that situation till the tanker hits bingo, you also save range\gas from the less time spent at < loiter because you take the full hit there for loiter-rate even though you're going slower. That or swap the home bases for the tankers once they are closer to an asian airfield than they are to pearl, or do both. That extra 15-30 min of extra\saved gas sometimes can make all the difference hours later. ;)
//end minidump.dbg
TLDR: Going off the beaten path too far with refueling in a away that operates exactly how you want and at times more realistic can be challenging, but it's usually doable with enough Lua effort.
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