Decoy

The decoy menu is part of the Build Menu, and is reached by pressing the “Decoy” button near the bottom. You can also press d. Freedom Guard can build decoy structures. Imperium build decoy vehicles.

Decoy units and structures have the same stats as the originals except they have less health, lower cost, much faster build time, and typically slightly less sight range. They serve no function other than to mislead your enemies regarding the size of your army. Also, if you can get the enemy to focus most of their attacks on your cheap decoy units instead of on your more expensive real units, you can occupy their forces enough to give you a significant advantage in battle.

Decoy Structures

Decoy buildings are cheap copies of regular structures. They do not require power and therefore cannot be powered down. They can be repaired (for a price) and sold for a small percentage of their cost just as with normal buildings. Decoy structures do not consume the Construction Rig when built.

Decoy structures cannot train units and do not participate in accelerated production. They do give a sight range, however, and you can try to place them on the outer edges of your base where they are more likely to be targeted, which may help save some of your more important buildings from destruction.

Decoy Units

Decoy units have no weapons and therefore cannot attack. They also have a life span, after which time they will vanish regardless of their health levels. You can recognize one of your own decoy units because of its black timer displayed underneath the unit when it is selected.

Because decoy units do not have an attack, it is fairly easy to determine when an enemy is using decoys. Just look for units that run away instead of fighting. Having said that, the automatic unit AI targets decoys with the same priorities as regular units, so you must micromanage your units in order to focus their attacks on the real units.

Since they can’t attack anyway, decoy units make good scouts.