Decoy Blocks Changed ? - Space Engineers

[@dragonf1recdn]

What decoys need is a power consumption, but a setting that tells them to act as a cetain type of block that attracts fire. So a real decoy, in other words.

[@LastStandGamers]

Great idea vote this one up

[@TheBojaboja]

This would be for sure better than what they are today

[@alexhurd9843]

The problem with that, is that decoy blocks can't work as cheap flares. They'd need a battery per deployed decoy bundle, which makes them significantly more expensive.

[@mz00956]

​@@alexhurd9843 maybe the have a small battery in them

[@adamjenkins7653]

@@alexhurd9843 could just have an effectiveness scale then. more power, more efficient target reallocation.

[@jakeblohm3133]

A good use for spinning decoys could be for decoy drones that hover around enemy ships at a set distance (using the next update)

[@crysisrevelation6132]

I like where your head’s at. I might also try creating cheap chaff pods on a few large grids that are held together by merge blocks and then jettisoned when being chased.

[@xendakakorva3267]

I happen to have my own Decoy drone, it's called the Deceiver XD

[@StarWarsExpert_]

been a year and the AI update is out. Have you also seen some of these decoy drones?

[@eloryosnak4100]

I did actually know this, but to be honest I would like a mix of both. As in I'd like power consumption of decoys to be variable, so you could (with difficulty) change a target to a more internal or more out of the way decoy.

[@LastStandGamers]

Best idea I have heard so far.

[@eloryosnak4100]

@@LastStandGamers Theres a suggestion on Keen's forums thats been hanging around for a while XD

[@eloryosnak4100]

Personally I'd like all targeting to be power + speed based. So for example a low power fixed gun fast craft (like a fighter) would give higher targeting error, whereas a high power turreted craft would have lower error, making fighters viable for decksweeping and making power positioning important. If targeting relied only on power consump., and consumption was tweaked a good bit, a lot more strategy could come into play, especially with "hotspots" like decoys that could just burn power to make a tempting target

[@volodymyr_budii]

I hate this change really much. If you really want to use it,you are forced to build ships with outside pods for them, which cuts off a lot of creativity.

[@iainthetroll]

With the ai drone stuff would it be better to make dedicated ships for distracting the enemy

[@MrBlackdragon1230]

So the decoy's should have an active and passive setting, in passive mode they take no power but you have to use them like they are now and push them into the front line of fire. In active mode they take a good amount of power and work more like they used to. So have you tested the decoy's in Weaponcore as well? Im wondering if they are the same. Adding a welder beside the decoy and surrounded with blast door blocks should significantly extend the life of the decoys as well right? Anyway thanks for showing us this about the decoys. Cheers

[@mz00956]

How about taking as much power as the block it should fake. As in creating the same energy signature.

[@adamjenkins7653]

Got a question. Have you seen Capac's "Tug Of War", or her sister "Pull O' Conflict"? There's a spinning mid section, between two parts of the main grid; though I still don't understand how they pulled it off. If it was like that with decoys I would accept it.

[@christopherg2347]

7:15 That actually was a problem with WW1 fighters. Ideal position was right around the propeller. But then you risk shooting off said propeller. They used a "synchronization gear" in the end. Maybe you could do something similar with the event or a timer block, that turns off the gun for q second when it would hit?

[@foxtrotunit1269]

7:16 They had to deal with that on prop planes too. In WWI they had a single machinegun exiting out of the propeller shaft in the middle (which they made hollow for that reason) In WWII they had the MG firing mechanism physically synced to the spinning of blades. In SE you could do something similar I guess, maybe with the Event controller.

[@bendover1028]

I remember reading an article about the first synced firing systems , it wasbloody impressive tat engineers and mechanics were doing it and so many of them had only just gotten hands on to this new tech (petrol engines, machine guns and flight tech; and in months they had learned all these systems then figured a way to make them all work at the same time and finally not blow the props to splinters. Gents of British persuasion may remember a magazine called "Mayfair", great articles in every edition. 😁

[@phoenixyo9987]

actually the MG firing sync mechanism is also from WW1, its one of the reasons the German Airforce was rolf stomping Allied airforces, until they managed to get their hands on/dev their own.

[@foxtrotunit1269]

@@phoenixyo9987 Ah, cool

[@Goodtown325]

That spinning decoy tactic was literally one of my first ships. Almost 8000 hrs of gameplay ago. I built something similar to raid the NOC cargo ships that would spawn. Park that thing just off the side of the ship so it would distract the turrets, then use my own rocket launcher to pick them off. Once complete, move in to pick the bones.

[@michaelredford5389]

(thinks he's being really clever with that spinning fish ship) *railgun fired straight down the centre of it. 😅

[@michaelredford5389]

I did just join the discord so you never know. 😂. Most likely not though on the simple fact that it has always taken me well over a dozen hours to find uranium in any survival playthrough.

[@tails0420ify]

"Use two sticks of C4." "Sir?" "It's a Blast Door."

[@aurenian8247]

Cheers for breaking this down. It seems I get a different answer about this every time I ask because so many people are used to weaponcore. Since warfare 2 I've had a few warships fly home with no weapons and mostly intact wing decoys. Now I have a definite answer as to why. Honestly it's an irritating change. I like to make ships look nice as well as work well and this basically forces me to have decoy outriggers on anything I want to make into a serious combat ship. I'm thinking some fake antennae sticking out the front with decoys in might work. But the scale I generally work at would make that a somewhat unwieldy looking ship. Food for thought I guess.

[@slinkerdeer]

I have a ship series call the "Tri'al" which massively utilises Decoy blocks. Safe to say I do not want the designs scrapped because of changes to the block. Edit: Yup, the decoys in the designs are buried in layered and ribbed armour. Nice to have hours of work rendered useless.

[@zavdan7682]

Another idea for decoys is to change how they work. Basically make them a Flare/chaff dispenser that makes a short lasting partial or point that attracts fire, BUT these charges are limited and the better ones are somewhat expensive. This could be a good idea to do, though require more work, but it could in turn allow or more fun weapons like homing missile turrets to realistically be added with out being to too broken. Or even just the fact of how much more cinematic it would be. but that is just my two bits

[@danburrykerman6826]

carriers that launch drones, which have 2 propellers, so are stable, that orbit the enemy to completely ruin enemy fire. Or a factory carrier that builds and launches decoy pod orbiters to constantly confuse enemy turrets and possibly induce friendly fire.

[@olive6942]

One method of using decoys that I have not seen done is to spread out large amounts of them like mines. I understand why nobody does this, but I feel like it would still be kinda cool.

[@fakshen1973]

You could shoot between the "propeller" using a sensor block and an ownable block on the propeller to trigger it. The sensor would be tuned to turn off direct fire weapons shooting through the prop as the blade gets close to the weapon's line of fire. Then back on as it has passed.

[@gamerelite3989]

a similar idea had been stated in the comments but this reinforces the use of decoy missiles ( or drones as in the other comments ) to lure the turrets away from your grid as they will be close to the enemy turrets than your ship/rover/base decoy traps can be set as well or ejected from grids closer to enemy turrets for luring tho spinning tops with decoys were really effective till the tweak keen did XD cheers

[@foxtrotunit1269]

5:57 Wow, imagine a AI guided torpedo (in the near future) that has a "propeller decoy" Truly a weapon of mass destruction. (AI will keep the prop oriented mostly towards enemies) It would be hard to store due to size, but maybe they can be designed as "deployable" props using small pistons or hinges or something. Might be kinda expensive - but if it kills ships, it's worth it.

[@andrewding746]

this sounds terrifying not gonna lie

[@prisoner6266]

Feels like that rotating decoy get-up might look good when put on a conning tower or bridge structure, while keeping fire away from the bridge from certain angles. Could buy you enough time to get yourself into a better angle while not being too obnoxious.

[@dooder39]

Wait, doesn't this mean the decoys are bugged? They way they used to work simply meant that the decoy steal target priority over other blocks after they got into range of enemy weapons. So other blocks would still be targeted first until the decoy gets in range. Now it seems like the target priority is simply removed and is being targeted like any other block would be targeted: By distance.

[@deloptin545]

yes, but the decoys still attract all fire. you can set turrets to target specific things, but if there's a decoy it will target that instead of if a turret was in the same place, and you told it to target thrusters

[@DrAmethyst]

To me, spinning decoys would only be fair if the ship they're connected to are unarmed (Drop pods, boarding craft, civilian vessels, etc), but at the same time, the actually spinning part can't be super long to the point where turrets can't fire because they can't get a lock. If something like that is done, I can imagine that they'd still be fun to fight against and play around with even in multiplayer.

[@ArcBane]

Probable the best method I’ve found was to attach a few decoys to a torpedo and deploy them through spinning. It’s a good trick

[@jamesscalzo3033]

Loved the video @LastStandGamers! Can't wait for the next video man! I like the Decoy Pod Approach a bit better than the Nunchuck-like "Decoy-Chu" Approach since you could just build an MC80 Liberty-Type Heavy Cruiser and fill the Shield Generators with Decoys while your Autocannon, Assault Cannon and Artillery Cannon Custom Turrets just tear into the Enemy!

[@Endless_Jaguar]

I'm thinking an ECM Drone might be best. Build a small grid with an automation block set to intercept, lots of decoys, heavy armor.

[@keetongu9511]

This woud be a cool way to defend an asteroid base

[@error5202]

Spinning conning tower designs have been around and I think they look real cool over a base or battleship.

[@adamn2993]

*sitting there with decoys 4 layers deep with like 40 all over my ship* "fucking what?"

[@ToaDrakua]

Meanwhile, your turrets: *Burning Wreckage*

[@LastStandGamers]

So true

[@slinkerdeer]

My latest build is a juggernaut style tank ship with decoys surrounding the entire grid inside ribbed, spaced and layered armour. 57 custom turrets with mostly x6 auto cannons each, some x4 each. This change basically renders the ship useless. The enemy turrets target the small grid custom turrets ALWAYS, and they always get destroyed completely within the first few minutes of a fight.

[@party4lifedude]

I think this is a nice change, because it adds another engineering and strategic challenge for people to overcome. This is good information to know.

[@PLASMA_2005]

I have only ONE ship that use the skinny decoy cheez but I purposely balanced it so that within usually anywhere between 350-400 ish meters they won't draw the attention nearly as efficiently for balance and fun reasons lol

[@MMuraseofSandvich]

If I saw a spinning nunchuk decoy thingie and I had missiles, I'd be taking my guy with just a launcher and some missiles and aiming at the axis.

[@AkrimaSablosang]

On an actual ship sure, but what if the player uses explosive blocks with that attatched, and there's more than one? Suddenly all your automated defense is powerless to stop an swarm of devatating missiles, and you're left to destroy any number of them manually. One is easy. Two is okay, three will start pushing it, and anything above will undoubtedly do very high amount of damage.

[@EAdude101]

I've been working on something in my own games which is sort of designed to get enemies to shoot at themselves. It's basically just a harpoon with a decoy slapped on the back

[@oditeomnes]

Oh, you can make aesthetically pleasing spinners, especially on larger ships. For example disguised as on of those mast radars we often see on real ships, or if your ship is designed like those sci-fi colony ships from various movies and games

[@beaconofwierd1883]

If they haven’t changed the decoy blocks since Warefare 2, this info is wrong. Decoys give each block a priority based on the distance to the block (I think it was distance^4 or something like that when I tested it, but I never quite figured it out exactly), but decoys have have a 10 times higher priority than other blocks, then the system picks randomly between the two blocks, so if you have a decoy and a thruster at the same distance to the turret it will target the decoy 10/11 times. In practice it often means that the closer blocks are targeted first, but it’s still probabilistic.

[@GhostOfSnuffles]

Keen has a special ability to take functional blocks and make them useless.

[@AnkhWolf]

What about a set of AI Drone Ship's with Decoys set to orbit either your vessel or the enemy vessel? Just launch them before engaging

[@LastStandGamers]

The small grid Decoys ain't worth there weight in my opinion. Some large ship cubes with decoys floating around you would be a possible strategy.

[@AnkhWolf]

@@LastStandGamers Fighter size Drone with a Large Grid Decoy connected by a hinge might work

[@bendover1028]

It would be an answer to why massive ships bother carrying more than a couple of fighters, I've seen 2 mods so far that control your drones in flight allowing formations and decoy type mission support roles. If used in that way you could see carriers or battleships escorted by 3-4 fighters and all controlled by 1 person and not the several thousand that real ships need.

[@AnkhWolf]

@@bendover1028 Honestly after the AI beta I immediately thought of an idea I had a while back of a combination ship, basically something Cruiser size with 2--6 Corvette sized vessels attached when just traveling sharing power, propulsion and jump drives that deattach and fly in formation around it when in combat. Setting it up would be tricky but with the AI blocks, Sensors and timers I think it's something that could be done in vanilla

[@bendover1028]

@@AnkhWolf I would think you unwell if you had not :) Seriously though, if you have the skill to build then I agree that it could be doable in vanilla but if you can track down those mods it would go far beyond simply looking cool for a promo video, you could have an x axis 4 ship diamond formation for a Rapid reaction force that matches your Big ship for speed at a set distance pinging for threats. Service ships and or drones a plenty could be tucked in and ready to deploy according to the situation. Oh man I called dream on till drool slipped down my chin as per Homer Simpson. If you do build it then please let me see? I'll wipe my feet before boarding etc. Follow your dream mate, cheers.

[@Jalbesbe]

Hasn't it been like this for over a year. I'd send decoy pods to attach to the enemy ships in a swarm volly. Some will get shot out, some will miss to be collected later, but some will get stuck in blind spots that distract the ships turrets. Literally had it where a decoy pod locked into the corner of an enemy thruster pod. All but one of their turrets were targeting the decoy but couldn't shoot it where it was on the ship. Made it easy to fly in and take out their guns on one side of their ship. Felt kinda bad for them since they lost such a large ship in a short battle with very minimal damage, however they were the aggressors and we were happy for the loot.

[@ghostofdeath6692]

The spinning method isn't one I use on ships, I use it on ground stations.

[@zell1624]

After a little testing after seeing this video we have a solution, spinning decoy rockets with warheads and some remote blocks, this was able to be set around ships and mess with targeting systems and as a resort if we see manual controlled turrets we use the warheads.

[@party4lifedude]

I think the decoy propeller would be fine as a desperation tactic, if you were in a co-op PVE situation and you absolutely have to pirate that freighter or your entire crew will starve to death or run out of oxygen. But you would construct a special throwaway small grid boarding craft for that mission alone and then abandon it. I would imagine if people started doing this in PVP servers, new rules would quickly start popping up in those servers. Of course having one person in a manned turret that is aware of the situation could handle it with a few well placed shots, so it wouldn't be impossible to counter. Just something to keep everyone on their toes.

[@piggguexmpiranha800]

All I can think of, is to take a sphere, have multiple layers, each rotating around the previous with several decoy blocks on it. Then put everything on the inside of the sphere. You got all sides covered, however I agree it would not be that fun for everyone else. Authentically, you basically make it a born sphere and your good to go. Resistance is futile with the decoys of the spins.

[@Captain_Raama]

When thew AI beta test was going on i made a missile. missile is what i called a KDM (Kinetic Decoy Missile). When i engaged in testing combat, i shot the missiles out. They were meant to be slow so i can use them for their decoy role as my ship fired at them. and the best part was, after the missiles' decoys were destroyed, the ship was still firing at the missiles.

[@congareel]

the best idea you had here was num-chuk lightsabers RING DISNEY NOW

[@alpacaofthemountain8760]

Imagine an AI ship with that drops decoys to distract turrets

[@sgmvideos5175]

2 things, I preffer how pirates use decoys, they just deploy them in space behind themself and second is I wonder if it could be went around this with programming block, so that turrets can still target at least the ship itself

[@turbogamerxd329]

I have made my own missiles which can lock on a grid-coordinate of a ship. Those would be very effective against decoys as with them you just need to aim for something on the ship (let's say an artillery turret) and then launch it. As long as there is a clear path of sight between the ship and the missile it will take the closest path to the target point with insane accuracy. As the autopilot is sometimes annoying I chose to write my own much simpler autopilot specialized for the missile. Works dead-accurate but smaller targets can be more difficult. If the missile doesn't hit it also has a tracking cam on the back which it will also use to keep track.

[@bolland83]

Seems like a decoy turret/launcher would be a good addition, something that shoots flares to draw enemy fire. You would have to make flare ammo for it and keep it protected from getting destroyed which would be an interesting way to balance it. Heck, just add it in as an alternative missile ammo and put a menu option on the existing launchers for ammo type, don't even need a new block for it. Crafting could require Mg. Co. and large amounts of gravel maybe? Given the current "meta" has rendered missiles essentially useless this would be a good way to salvage an existing block with added functionality and not a lot of programing overhead.

[@RosebudMartin]

Alright, hear me out, a player built missile of gyro, decoy, battery, Ion thruster, all inline, have some armor paneling on the side for extra survivability, except for a merge block on the side for automated building. On your ship are 3 buttons, for welder, missile thruster override, and detach merge blocks.

[@patsey3199]

I wasn’t entirely sure if that’s how decoys work, and in the first time in my 1900 hours of space engineers. I just about nailed it on my first ship involving them a few months ago.

[@Daniel-Strain]

What about a circular armored pod on the sides, and inside them is a shorter rod with decoys on the end, rotating internally?

[@stevebloxham3832]

Do decoy missiles work? For example if you are already drawing fire will missiles with decoys on become a higher target and draw the aggro once they get closer?

[@chiaeagle6720]

I use the chaff pod/flares method. On the ship i have merge block welder and grav gen (pointing outward at 0.1g). The chaff pod is a decoy, merge and spaceball, In a line. Its all set on timers with 2 options. Print or print-launch-print ( decoy launching grav gens only on for launch phase). When advancing to the enemy, you fire off a bunch of pods then break slightly so the cloud of pods is in front to take fire for you. Typically mount the launchers at the lateral edges of the ship (top, bottom, left, right). Havent tested it in a little while. But it seemed to work alright after warfare 2 first launched

[@chiaeagle6720]

A cheaper version could skip the space ball and just detach the pods via spinning the ship

[@chrisdon6847]

Try putting the spinner on the front and then make the ship armament side or top/bottom ( or do all 3) firing homing missiles, just give the missile a long enough boost phase to clear the propeller before it tries to acquire target.

[@ChadZLumenarcus]

Here's my suggestion for Keen. Add a sensor module that can be used to scan for ships and components. This should need power and direction to operate. Only if this is working can your turrets "Lock" on. Next, make decoys have options to select what kind of signature they give off and require power to increase the strength of that decoy. The issues is, we have turrets and systems in SE that operate with sensors we don't have access to and it creates this kind of obtuse understanding of how weapons lock on and function. In the Real World, we call this a kill chain, where sensors are used to provide targeting data to controllers and weapons to hit the target. SE is very close to achieving this kind of real world simulation. Imagine then, sending a small, armored probe to scan and provide data for your own systems, even creating a blueprint on the hologram table to show you what it saw/ scanned, which is then used for your own weapons to target. This alone would be a tasks for a person to manage as they try to direct weapons fire towards points on the enemy ship. The enemy by contrast could use Decoys and projectors to mask to try and fool the scanners.

[@drewbeirn7704]

Spinners feel like a fun way to get player made missiles through turrets. Especially with the new Ai block updates. Would love to see a drop down on decoys to make them targeted like different parts, aka thrusters, power, weapons.

[@MediumRareOpinions]

I didn't find that necessary. I slung 4 budget anti ship missiles at a grid with 8 gatling turrets, interception was hopeless, with at least 2-3 missiles in each salvo hitting the target. I'd say fitting such complexity to the missile is redundant compared to the extra cost per missile, you could probably invest it in firing an extra missile per salvo OR upping the mass/payload of each missile.

[@RoverHouse]

i made a decoy launcher that works in atmo and launches 750 decoys per minute! 25 per 2 seconds. this build is also the first in the ARCANE series.

[@TheFoxfiend]

I like the idea of decoys being deployed like cry babies from Firefly. Ooh, now I want to make a Firefly class ship in Space Engineers, I bet it could be done. I wonder if actual design plans can be found.

[@PrimordialNightmare]

I wonder If one possible tool against speedy spinning decoys would be setting up custom turrets with a generous angle deviation. So that hte turrets at least shoot. I think the problem with the gatlign not shooting was that it didn't get close enough on target with its limited turning speed. though the less precise the turret is set to be, the more shots of it will miss or just hit * somewhere*

[@Raugharr]

My first idea would be to launch an otherwise harmless missile at my target that breaks into dozens of quickly spinning small grids like some sort of chaff to confuse the turrets of my enemy. After that just swoop in and knock them out while they are trying to clear up the quickly spinning decoys

[@jasonm9425]

so put your turrets on the front of the ship on conveyer as a cross, then on the tips of the cross put rotor with 5 blocks long after the roter then do the T for decoys, since your weapons are a good 7-10 blocks back with spinney rotors on the tips your weapons can all shoot just fine and the opposing ship is swiss cheese

[@Leaglestalon]

I tend to keep to the survival and knowing decoy blocks also pull lightning be such s fun idea even if just a Mod made idea that lightning can be channeled thru them to charge something. However it does destroy what it strikes so that is the downside.

[@jeremyortiz2927]

I think spinners would be cool only if it's the "prop" of a giant WW1 biplane. 😂

[@badblinco]

The rotor decoy is what I stick on my missiles lol

[@TheBojaboja]

Do the way decoys work today by design or an oversight/bug by Keen? I don’t think it’s a great choice to have them only work if they are ahead of the targeted subsystem. “Please prioritize shooting the front of my ship” seems like a dumb only option.

[@erubianwarlord8208]

looking at the keen support forums its a bug and one that has been in the game since warfare

[@ascspeedywalker4778]

Are warheads weapons in the targetinf system? If they are you could have a ship that dumps warheads around the battlefield

[@DaRoach5882]

What mod is makes the background of space look so good?

[@LordDrackonel]

Finally Aaron makes a video that's actually useful and about something no one has talked about before...

[@error5202]

I’d like to try out a nimble large ship build with an armored decoy pod sticking down and out toward your opponent. With a good amount of thrusters on the bottom of the craft the enemy turrets should be firing far away from the ship wile I’m zipping around him.

[@CMDROldDuck]

Oi, between this and changes in armor, I need to rethink entire aspects of my ship designs!

[@lieps2547]

i feel that it makes it kinda useless for normal ships tho like its not really worth it except if you gonna make a meda ship or something

[@matthew-005]

What if the the spinner had turrets? Can they hit anything as they would be just as hard to target by the enemies turret wouldn't they.

[@katherinek6166]

The problem with rotating decoys like that is that they'd be easy pickings for manual targeting. But this could be absolutely amazing for missiles. If you can launch a swarm that none of the automatic defenses can get a lock on and there are too many for manual targeting, most of these will go through delivering the payload. With the new AI blocks, that might be the way a lot of large fleet engagements will go.

[@markbutler4033]

the issue with this would be getting them stable in flight but if you could make them fly to target reliably that would be awesome.

[@katherinek6166]

@@markbutler4033 Adding a second, counter-rotating bar at the back would cancel the net angular momentum, so that the missile doesn't have to fight the gyroscopic effect. This would still cause some stress on the rotors during turns, but so long as the rotating bars don't spin too fast, and the missile doesn't turn too rapidly, it should be manageable. If anyone still has the AI beta running locally, it'd be worth trying out to see how well it works, and if it's worth the extra complexity to the missiles.

[@robinwang6399]

There’s also the old trusty decoy field, decoys + artificial mass + batteries, controlled with two spherical gravity generators and multiple linear gravity generators to spin and contain the field. Edit: I forgot about space balls, replace artificial mass and batteries with a single space ball.

[@death13a]

Best decoys are torpedo decoys! Second best Decoy mines around your base

[@rafar9563]

So, now we can make some AI drones that are flying fast around, drawing attenition of the turrets, and these can be a cheesy spinners

[@thebigpurplefloof]

Seem like decoys were updated to work with the new upto blocks to crate a decoy drone swarm to stand off and swarm the enemy defenses

[@valdibona9228]

missile with rotating head? only one rotor so that the path it takes to the enemy is un-predictable itself

[@zackariaswade]

I usually put decoys in heavily armored nose cones

[@ElErizoSombra]

I mean Keen put decoys into a weird spot by making them only work when they are the closest target. This is simply the natural result of it. Since they work without power as well, this makes them incredibly OP against turrets.

[@cobeylynch4733]

Wait i dont need to add a power source for my flares? I always thought they needed power

[@ElErizoSombra]

I mean he mentions it in the video that they don't require power. I thought they did too, but oh well I guess.

[@lancearmada]

So decoy blocks were focused by ai turrets at first, then they changed them to do nothing, and now they are focused if they are closer than whatever else it is set to shoot at?

[@RevokFarthis]

You can ~sorta~ counter this with a custom turret... though it might be a tad expensive. Make a few custom gatling turrets (with a few dozen gatling guns each). Go into the turrets settings and give it a wide firing angle so that it only needs to be pointed sorta in the right general direction to start firing. You'll chew through your ammo, and a lot of it's gonna miss, but it'll be a *massive* wall of lead thrown in your opponents face.

[@ronnietageskov5219]

I cant help but wonder how the new AI blocks are going to perform against decoys? Would a decoy rocket be a viable defense against AI missiles? I would take it easy and wait before engaging in designing any sort of decoy defense before the new update arrives. One thing you didn't cover though (or I missed it entirely) do the decoys still work if the turrets are set to engage 'Weapons' or 'Power'?

[@Ramschat]

I believe they ignore decoys

[@Sasaking999]

They just made decoys useless. You needed decoys on the edge of your ship. Preferably the edge with the most thrust. Now you need it in the middle front.

[@kinngrimm]

Agreed. Especially in multiplayer i would not want to introduce more subgrids than needed to avoid clang anyways. Even if that spinning of decoys seen in the vid would be halfway viable, which isn't the case as it can be circumvented by static weapons or manual controll of the turrets and even more so as one can clearly *see* that spinning contraption and would have to be oblivious about its purpose(The concept isn't new). The outer/spaced armor seems there the best way to still use them and have anthything else on inner layers. Which but then also dictates form and takes away creativity of expression on how to build ships, which is my biggest beef with that.

[@Patman-cr3tu]

I wonder if decoys on hinges work?

[@Cifer77]

Had no idea, and honestly this new mechanic just seems ridiculous. This wasn't intentional was it?

[@LastStandGamers]

I am just as surprised its been like this for some time but no one seem to be bothered.

[@mysteriumxarxes3990]

just like the railgun drones, "if its in the game its meant to be used"

[@seannemo8076]

Has anyone done a decent launched decoy system?

[@Kmobful]

At least my old decoy launcher will still work

[@lordtent3476]

can you try a costom turret against the decoy

[@Ghosts-Gaiming]

So what I would do in a fleet setting at least I would have a fighter drop them as close as possible to the enamy ships then rather send in my heavy fighters or my really tranky ships, but I would probly have and mix of light and heavy fighters target important parts during the confusion like bridge, weapon's, engings you know the norm

[@spiritbw3665]

Am I the only one who thinks using spinning decoys but set in a turbine/jet engine opening at the front of the ship might both look cool and be functional?

[@heisag]

I guess Anakin was right about spinning is a good trick.

[@TIwdaym]

decoy drone factory on your assault ship with new ai blocks? Seems viable and cheap actually.

[@danielkirpichnikov2007]

I'd like to stick a one or two welder blocks to it, so you car repair damage in combat.

[@tchort93]

imagine sending a bunch of drone with these decoy block systems on them after an enemy with the new AI update? send these drones at them and just shoot them from a distance with artillary lol

[@IronGearProductions]

If someone has the balls to slap a giant propeller in the front of their ship and directly approach me AND I am too stupid to swap to manual control and just shoot him, I guess I'd kinda deserve to lose that fight. But I agree with the other comments, a neat decoy system would be for it to use power and maybe by making it consume more power, it'd "shine brighter" in the eyes of the turret AI and become a prioritized target

[@kingwolf468]

Oh man… I could build a shield using a spinner above a static base and there would be nothing that could be done

[@dustinpacezsny3375]

Klang reminder: please dont taunt the turrets

[@Dameon_The_Daemon]

Helicopter bombs bro Heli bombs coming from a space helicopter Each having spinner(s) and grav drive. Planetary heli-bombardnent

[@markbutler4033]

id legit only use the spinning decoys on npc ships/bases.

[@boxfoxscoot1614]

i do the propeller but i actually put it inside the nose of my ship