Decoys not functioning properly

I'm filing this updated ticket on the advice of keen moderator Dan2D3D as the circumstances of this issue had changed since I last reported it. My old report can be closed if need be and this on remain open.

Just as this sounds, an issue has caused the decoy blocks on my worlds and blueprints to stop functioning as they're supposed to. On November 19th all decoys stopped functioning in my worlds and in blueprints and will no longer draw fire towards themselves, and would only occasionally stop lightning bolts even with sufficient decoy coverage. It did not matter if the decoys were vanilla keen decoys or modded decoys, the issue persists. Cycling power on the grid and decoys themselves does not work, nor has reloading the game and verifying files. In some instances a workaround could restore temporary function to the decoys for about 5 minutes to 15 minutes. Place vanilla decoys and a modded decoy on the same grid, then remove the second decoy type leaving only modded decoys or only vanilla decoys on the grid. For combat purposes I realize decoys weren't not meant to be perfect. Whenever they worked prior to this issue they had around a 50% effectiveness. That effectiveness in combat is now zero with the same designs. They would also routinely draw lightning weather strikes away from other blocks towards themselves per patch notes stating they're supposed to be lightning rods. The effectiveness of this was reduced to around 5% of the time as of the bug vs the 90% of normal.

Over the course of several months the issue has gotten progressively worse to the point the workaround mentioned above at best guarantees 5 minutes of the decoys being functional, and the decoys will no longer function as lightning rods like they're supposed to. I have tried to dial the decoy priority level all the way to a multiplier of 1000 and still had no response to them.

When this issue cropped up I was in a world that used a singular mod which can be found here: https://mod.io/g/spaceengineers/m/space-engineers-2125

I have tested this issue in a clean unmodded world and the issue still persists. In my original report I included a copy of the unmodded world that I tested in along with ships that were as close to the originals as I could get. I will include that link to the original world again here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZjXdyNBo3udZqicwcjT9S0TdcKJv-b5O/view

To try the test using my method and the world I placed a fighter within range of a ship with decoys exposed for maximum chance for decoys to work. I then gave control of the fighter's turret to the pirates and let the turret open fire. When it opened fire it ignored the decoys completely. Test results were the same when giving the entire fighter to the pirates vs only the turret.

Another user named kazagistar was able to reproduce the issue more consistently than I was. I will include his videos below demonstrating the issue as attached files. To reproduce the issue using his method he required 2 grids.

1: turret, cargo with ammo and battery for power, all on default settings.

2: second grid with 5 functional blocks and a decoy among them. Blocks he used were battery blocks. According to him this should give the decoy a 2/3 chance of being hit since it has a priority of 10 instead of 1.

3: transfer ownership of the second grid containing the decoy to the pirates.

For his testing he experienced a bit of different results than I did where his decoys functioned more often than mine. However when he got the issue to show up, the grid containing the decoy would spawn in "cursed" as he called it causing the turret to shoot everything except for the decoy. He was also able to determine that the closest block to the turret is never targeted first, be it the decoy that's closest or a functional block. His original videos showing a cursed grid are linked below. He wasn't able to fully figure out what was causing the "cursed" behavior as he calls it but was able to document it more consistently than I was.

This is a significant issue because as it sits right now it robs people of a potent defensive option in combat, and the only defense we have against lightning weather strikes. If there are issues with any of the links or files, please let me know. Currently this bug has prevented virtually all ability to progress certain builds.

If the team wishes to close the old report out so I can keep this one open, the old one can be found here: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/41846-decoys-no-longer-functioning