When you get a decoupler, there's a benefit from having all the power and the core stay behind with the ship while you and a camera go off on their own. If you don't have a camera, bring the core too of course, but you can leave behind a powerbank at spawn.

Btw, to make a signal that's always on, use a not gate and put in a signal that's always off as the input, like "off", and "on" as the output as it's the inverse of that.

That does nothing to remotely answer the question. The question was "Can I take advantage of it without a decoupler." It's something you can pick up as a possible bonus when leaving a section in the survival mode, and wondering if that's useless to pick up if you don't have the factory or decoupler. I appreciate the attempt, but your answer of "The decoupler allows you to..." and then rambling about other things doesn't help.

Yeah probably not I don't see any immediate way without destroying parts

I have tried destroying the part using a heater, but it seems that the "drone" separated from the core this way becomes debris.

If I put the core in the actual drone, the fuel and energy are not being transferred:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3487851955

And if I leave the core with batteries and fuel tanks, the drone becomes unresponsive (and the camera tracker turns off):
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3487852803

So it seems that there is no workaround.

this is exactly what happened to me today