AI War:Decoy Drone
 |
Tough, high-health vessel with no significant guns. Attracts all fire from enemy ships to itself in place of ships within its protection area. Enemy ships that can fire through force fields (such as snipers and infiltrators) can also fire past decoys. |
Base Stats
| Ship Cap | Ammo Type | Armor Type | Immunities | Damage Bonuses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | Shell | Ultra-Light | Fusion Cutters, Armor Boosts, Tractor Beams, Reclamation, Being Insta-Killed, Mines |
| Damage | Attack Range | Reload | Health | Armor | Speed | Engine Health | Single Ship DPS | Ship Cap DPS | Abilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 3,000 | 10 sec | 1,000,000 | 0 | 72 | 10,000 | 2 dmg/sec | 80 dmg/sec | Attracts All Incoming Shots |
| Knowledge | Metal Cost | Crystal Cost | Total Cost | Energy Cost | Build Time | Cap Metal Cost | Cap Crystal Cost | Cap Total Cost | Cap Energy Cost | Cap Build Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exp Fab | 800 | 0 | 800 | 250 | 00:00:07 | 32,000 | 0 | 32,000 | 10,000 | 00:04:40 |
How to use in your fleet
With its low 1,000,000 health, these ships will not last long under significant enemy fire. Added to one of the lower player-caps, these are not a large speed bump for the AI. However, they are still a speed bump and they can buy your other ships time to accomplish their mission.
It is worthwhile to mention GUDare/Wanderer's observation: ships can only fire at one Decoy at a time, leading to staggering overkill and a much higher effective health.
If you do happen to take a planet with one, it may be worth having a play with it against emplacements like Fortresses to test the above hypothesis ten report back to the forums/here.
How to counter when in the AI fleet
The player will only encounter Decoy Drones against an Experimentalist or Support Corps AI. They will inevitably be extra annoying, since there can be more of them protecting an AI ball as opposed to a what human-player can have in their fleet ball.
The best solution is to destroy them instantly with beam weapons to ensure that your fleet is firing at the right targets.
NB: The ship-description effectively means that Decoy Drones work like an invisible force field, the current best guess is that their 'protection radius' is twice the diameter of the Force Field Mk. III and does not shrink as the Decoy Drone takes damage.
