I have heard the term SDF in some posts on this board and I was wondering if someone could tell me what it is and how it works. I am a newbie and have not done a lot of evil play yet, so I don't know much about it. Thanks

It is, in some people's opinions (like mine) a bug, other people think its ok. JP has taken a halfway aprroach to fixing it, so its still viable. Anyway, like most types of strategy in the game, best reference is at http://www.tw-cabal.com they have a good breakdown on just about everything. In short, SDF needs 3 people, the red doing the stealing, and two people to "ping" him back and forth. So, you have your two pingers each in their own adjacent sector. planets in both sectors, and **B ports in both sectors. Red guy ports and steals equip. Drops equip on planet, lifts off. Pinger in sector A attacks him with just enough figs to make him "autoflee" to the other sector. In sector 2 now, red guy ports and steals, and puts equip on planet. Pinger number 2 attacks with just enough figs to make Red autoflee back to sector 1. Because "fleeing" uses turns (I hope I get this right), 1 turn every other flee? Its WAYYYY more cost effective than other red cashing techniques. Of course, it takes longer and is harder to setup. Alot of this can be easily overcome with ZOC and Automacros though. Hope that helps.

Col Sanders

"Jedi do not concern me" -The Sith

quote:
It is, in some people's opinions (like mine) a bug, other people think its ok. JP has taken a halfway aprroach to fixing it, so its still viable. Anyway, like most types of strategy in the game, best reference is at http://www.tw-cabal.com they have a good breakdown on just about everything. In short, SDF needs 3 people, the red doing the stealing, and two people to "ping" him back and forth. So, you have your two pingers each in their own adjacent sector. planets in both sectors, and **B ports in both sectors. Red guy ports and steals equip. Drops equip on planet, lifts off. Pinger in sector A attacks him with just enough figs to make him "autoflee" to the other sector. In sector 2 now, red guy ports and steals, and puts equip on planet. Pinger number 2 attacks with just enough figs to make Red autoflee back to sector 1. Because "fleeing" uses turns (I hope I get this right), 1 turn every other flee? Its WAYYYY more cost effective than other red cashing techniques. Of course, it takes longer and is harder to setup. Alot of this can be easily overcome with ZOC and Automacros though. Hope that helps.

Col Sanders

"Jedi do not concern me" -The Sith


"Change: I've added a turn penalty for fleeing. This penalty is only applied when a player attempts to land or port after fleeing. If the player uses a turn doing anything else before landing or porting, the penalty will not be applied. This change is intended to increase the turn cost of SDF from 2 turns/cycle to 3 turns/cycle on average by penalizing a turn roughly 50% of the time."

quote:
quote:
It is, in some people's opinions (like mine) a bug, other people think its ok. JP has taken a halfway aprroach to fixing it, so its still viable. Anyway, like most types of strategy in the game, best reference is at http://www.tw-cabal.com they have a good breakdown on just about everything. In short, SDF needs 3 people, the red doing the stealing, and two people to "ping" him back and forth. So, you have your two pingers each in their own adjacent sector. planets in both sectors, and **B ports in both sectors. Red guy ports and steals equip. Drops equip on planet, lifts off. Pinger in sector A attacks him with just enough figs to make him "autoflee" to the other sector. In sector 2 now, red guy ports and steals, and puts equip on planet. Pinger number 2 attacks with just enough figs to make Red autoflee back to sector 1. Because "fleeing" uses turns (I hope I get this right), 1 turn every other flee? Its WAYYYY more cost effective than other red cashing techniques. Of course, it takes longer and is harder to setup. Alot of this can be easily overcome with ZOC and Automacros though. Hope that helps.

Col Sanders

"Jedi do not concern me" -The Sith


"Change: I've added a turn penalty for fleeing. This penalty is only applied when a player attempts to land or port after fleeing. If the player uses a turn doing anything else before landing or porting, the penalty will not be applied. This change is intended to increase the turn cost of SDF from 2 turns/cycle to 3 turns/cycle on average by penalizing a turn roughly 50% of the time."




Well, Sanders, your explanation is a heck of a lot more detailed than mine. (I'm one of the peolple in the "thinks it's a bug/exploit" camp. The only thing you neglected to mention is that the red needs to be in a seperate corp, or in no corp for the blues to be able to attack the red. Most often, the red will leave the corp, and then re-join the corp when done. (works best with 2 reds, or you have alignment restrictions when trying to rejoin the corp...)

I guess I'll update my page with your explanation when I do my next update.

Oh, one more thing... SDF = Steal, Dump, Flee.

Thanks!



-Traitor
Visit http://www.tw-cabal.com

Edited by - Traitor on July 19 2002 1:43:30 PM

quote:
Its WAYYYY more cost effective than other red cashing techniques.


Its not actually that much better. 33% better on the main loop, but busting/furbing are no less turns. Your choice of areas is much more limited (you need the xxB's adjacent + typically want in a bubble/dead end so that you don't have to surround so many sectors with figs- this gives you less choice on ports, and thereby you have to take ports that have lower prices.... and then there's the fuses when you forget to rejoin the corp... Personally I reckon you come out behind when you factor in all the miscellaneous factors.

Dr. Bad

Yes, SDF is better than SST if you are only counting turns for the Red player. Of course it is preferable over SSM by a long shot. The object was to absolutely maximize the amount of cash a Red can make in a very-limited-turn game (750 or less).
.
By JP increasing the turns used from 2 to 2.5 (50/50 chance of using a turn) it cuts the profitability in a dramatic way, enough that the trouble, time, and the need for 3 people to do it is not seen as being a worthwile or cost-effective effort.
.
A Stead-Dump-Transport routine uses 4 turns per loop. SDF only used 2 turns, making it twice as profitable. Forcing an extra turn to be used makes SDF a 3 turn loop. Is it worth the trouble of the fighter ring and having 3 people online at once to run, just to save one turn for the Red player?
.
The experience of creating and running a SDF script only showed that it could be done. I doubt anymore that it SHOULD be done, as the profit is lower now, and not worth the resources of two corpmates over a simple SDT script a Red player could run single-handedly.

Face the Firepower! ...then RUN!