So I had a random thought this evening. What would it take for RemoteTech to implement Delay Tolerant Networking?
It's a real world technique where data can be passed on to a relay without the relay having a connection with the target, and essentially it makes deep space missions a lot easier (or when a lot of relays are passing on the data).
It can probably be unlocked at R&D very late in the tech tree, so it wouldn't make the early-game too easy. Also maybe it can be implemented that only some more advanced probe cores have such functions, or add a "data storage" HDD part for relay to store data.