I love them. They are a major factor in my play style.

I have thought about it but always seemed to distrust that as a good plan as the mine I am using just uses 2 ap and if it hits kills off crew members.

What is the best way to use the Arrow dummies?

Basically they get the other guy to waste AP trying to take them down with ECM, sometimes taking as many as 5 AP at a time from him, and they reload so fast that you can fire a steady stream of the things, keeping them always off balance. Think of them as a poor man's EMP.

Dummies are really great at the beginning (fighter/Corvette), you can't use them with later shipclasses.
As you said...1 AP invested and the enemy waste 4 AP on average.

To call them a poor mans EMP is wrong... they're much better

1.They are available for alle classes from the start
2.Cheap to install
3.just fire and forget, the enemy will always waste AP even with a lucky 1. ECM-Sucsess he wasted at least 1 AP
4.EMP need 5 AP to be activated and has a to-hit-chance...so you might just waste your round

The nuclear mines are a good option for bigger ships. It's unclear whether they actually kill crew or not, but at 1 AP, you can't go wrong.

Like mentioned in the relevant post there is a bug with the calculation of the numbers of the enemy crew you encounter during boarding. However nuclear mines still limits the amount encountered proportionally.

Thanks, Niels. There is still something very special about being able to communicate with the designer of a game. It wasn't that long ago when such was pretty much unheard of.

Also, Nuc Mines are 2 AP, not 1 as a mentioned earlier. Sorry about that.

Bah! I'll get this right eventually. Nuc Mines, are in fact, 1AP. Sorry about the confusion.