Decoy or not to decoy...

[CelticChaos]

I am not having much like with decoys. Can you launch decoys (single block/decoy only) and will AI attack the decoy? This doesn't seem to be working for me. If attached to my ship they do appear to target that area of the ship first.

Decoys do not require power, I believe, so they should work if launched as a projectile toward an approaching Assaillant. I was hoping to distract the thing while I took out its forward gun.

Targeting is not an exact science and I find my light armor ships just take too much damage if fighting multiple target. Decoys, while they don't last long, they last long enough to give me a chance to return fire.

Or is there a better battle technique that I haven't learned yet?

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

As far as i know you cant launch one as a single block, it needs a merge aswell to dissconnect from your ship. Add a spaceball and you have a gravity fed decoy launcher with 3 block projectiles.

If you leave the gravity aspect alone i found it good to just use decoy and merge, then release them in a lil net and park behind it. That way i could slowly advance towards a pirate base laying new nets each time it sent a drone.

You can also just release them at say 50ms, then brake and fall in behind them as cover for an attack run.

Another trick is a welder and projector that keeps rebuilding a decoy in a none critical area of your ship :)

PS if you use a rotor you can relese the 2 block version via centrifugal froce and just "throw" them out as you fly along

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

This shows the simplest 2 block launchable type, its an old catapult thing that reloads when the arm goes down haha
Usually id just have a merge block on the back of the ship and then 1 welder next to it. The decoy sits over the welder, and a timer makes it weld then disconnect the merges :)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=652821026

[Legas]

It's usually more effective to just have a "wing" sort of structure in the ship with heavy armor and decoys beneath.

I tried throwing decoys around, but it's too much of a hassle. If the decoy is not covered in heavy armor it's usually dead in seconds.

Also, karmaterror, that decoy launcher you built seems unnecessarily complicated.

Instead of Merge blocks just use the rotor head, so you'd only need 1 rotor, 1 armor block on top of the rotor head and the decoy on top of the armor. Rotate to speed then detach the rotor head.
Again, useless unless you cover the decoy in heavy armor.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Originally posted by Legas:

It's usually more effective to just have a "wing" sort of structure in the ship with heavy armor and decoys beneath.

I tried throwing decoys around, but it's too much of a hassle. If the decoy is not covered in heavy armor it's usually dead in seconds.

Also, karmaterror, that decoy launcher you built seems unnecessarily complicated.

Instead of Merge blocks just use the rotor head, so you'd only need 1 rotor, 1 armor block on top of the rotor head and the decoy on top of the armor. Rotate to speed then detach the rotor head.
Again, useless unless you cover the decoy in heavy armor.

But could i reload it that way? That catapult has welders inside so as the arm comes down the projection is welded up again. With a rotor head will it attach when built?

For me welding a net of them and hiding behind it is the best option. Though grav driven can be nice and smooth aswell :)

[Seenloitering]

If you want forward facing defense during an attack (especially attacking a base), there isn't much point in launching a decoy. You're better off with a ship nose that is essentially a bunch of decoys wrapped in many layers of heavy armor. Really, it should be the only heavy armor you need on the ship. By the time your target manages to destroy your decoys, the fight should be over.

For a more complicated battle environment, you can effectively make an "armored nose" facing each direction you want to defend.

[delleds]

If you're using a small grid to take on a large ship, I would suggest giving your ship lots of gyros and wings with decoys attached to the ends, as well as lots of maneuvering thrust. Or, if you don't get dizzy easily, you could "do a barrell roll" (aileron for flight nerds, pressing q or e for anyone else) when you enter the range of that large ship's turrets. Keep spinning as you release your payload, and don't stop spinning until you're out of range. I've never gotten hit doing my "barrel rolls" so perhaps there is some truth to Peppy's old saying.