Whats the best way to prevent a fake bust when running TeamSDT. I had thought that robbing an unrelated port for some credits would prevent it from happening on the SDT ports

Well, if you're doing it the old fashioned way - without 100% automation and 2 reds.
Setup 3 sectors with ships planets etc..

Have Trader 1 run all 3 sectors. After he busts, have him sit in the ship where he did NOT bust.

Have Trader 2 run the remaining 2 ships.

After trader 2 busts, have him sit in the ship he did NOT bust in.

Trader 1 should be able to SDT the other two sectors starting from where he is sitting. Rinse, repeat.

Best way to prevent a fake bust, is have your Reds sit in the sector where they'll be safe to start from. If their partner is also sitting in their safe-to-start sector, the only remaining ship should be clear for use. I've never understood the method that has reds sitting in separate 'sitter' ships - unless you're running with more than 2 people.

More than 2 people, you'll either need to run more than 3 sectors or have sitter ships. Make sure your reds keep track, best rules to follow to avoid fakes.

1)Don't start at your last bust
2)You can start at your last successful steal, if you've busted elsewhere afterward.
3)Don't start at your last bust
4)Keep track of yours and your teammates busts - know where they've busted so you know if you're clear to run there.
5)Don't start at your last bust - even if it's been cleared
6)Nevermind, this is too complicated - just run a bot that does everything for you and your team - no need to learn the basics of the game first!

Robbing an unrelated port won't always prevent a fake bust unless you bust at the unrelated port. The reason you're fake busting is probably because that is where you last busted. It will prevent a fake bust if it was your last successful steal.

Even using a fully automated script, I still keep track of all red busts old school with paper & pencil. Once in a while the "operator" may have a hiccup and won't reset the matrix correctly, causing fake busts.

I do have my "sitter ship" on a non-sdt port that I can off-rob at before starting the team sdt run.

All that was well and good, but my question was how to prevent a fake bust.

Not sure what else you need?? The only way you'll fake bust is if you try stealing/porting at your last bust or uncleared bust, or you try stealing from the same port twice in a row.

Listed above are ways of preventing that from happening.

Best way to prevent it, is to pay attention - or play blue.

Actually if you use Swath, you can check the last bust time to verify the most recent. I don't remember if TWX stores that info or not, if so you could just write a simple script to retrieve the information.

Are you sure about that?

My understanding is that fake busts are caused by attempting to steal from your last robbed port. They're "fake" in the sense of not being recorded. In other words, you're not really busted at that port, and you haven't cleared anyone else's bust there. It's something that's associated with the trader and not the port. Successfully stealing always sets your last robbed port. So does a real bust, which is why you can't start SDT from the last port you busted at even after the bust is cleared. Am I missing something?

If you busted at a port, robbing at a different port won't clear your bust - you'll fake bust.

However, if your last bust has been cleared by your teammate and you accidently fake bust there, robbing at an unrelated port will clear that sector for you. But your bust needs to be cleared by someone else for that to work.

IMO, the only reason you fake bust is if you're not paying attention - there's really no excuse other than that. Just don't steal/port at your last bust, and don't steal from the same port twice in a row. It's not a hard concept.

Not to flame anyone, but if you've played more than one game as a red and don't understand this - you might want to think about hanging up the M0MBot for a game or two and try using your fingers.

That would be a double bust, not a fake bust. IIRC, they have different fines and XP penalties.



Yeah. But technically it doesn't clear the sector; it clears the trader. If you bust in sector 123 and then sit idle while your teammate SDTs, sector 123 is still your last robbed sector even after your bust there is cleared. If you start there, you will fake bust.

Hence why you don't start at your last bust. You sit over and start at your last success and let your partner run the other two ports, either one they bust at will be clear for you. Also, my scenerio above assumed that your partner had cleared 123 and you accidently started there and fake busted. You can then rob somewhere else, and come back to 123 and rob successfully.

There are two things that cause a fake bust

1) Try to rob/steal from your last busted port
2) Rob/steal from the same port twice.

There is only one way for your bust to clear same day

1) Your corp mate busts

I always keep track of port#, ship# and player last busted on a piece of paper.

And ya know what, we almost always fake bust from time to time, no matter how careful we are, so keep 500k on hand always just in case you need to buy that super-furb.

I wish I had asked you a few days ago... Great information there...

We are using a bot (TWX/M()MBOT), and we have tried several different scripts. The problem we are having with every TSDT script we have tried is that they occasionally make mistakes and/or crash. When you try to restart, they have incorrect bust data, and they start fake busting EVERYWHERE. I had one trader fake bust in all 3 ships, which shouldn't even be possible.


TWX has a field for busts, but when I run M()MBOTS(v3.1042) busts command it says "0 Busts Found In DataBase". Is there a daemon that should be running to track busts?


Maybe I was tired, but I am pretty sure that I robbed the port at base, and then fake busted in a sector that was not my last real bust. Robbed the port at another base, and fake busted at the other sector that was not my last real bust. At this point, this player could not rob any of the three ports we had set up for SDT. Waited for extern to run, and this player was still unable to rob at any of the three sectors even if robbing a base first.


Thanks SupG, I think that is the piece of the puzzle we were missing.

The other issue is bust tracking. Is there a way to get M()MBot to track busts, or is there a good public bust tracker out there somewhere?

We spent a lot of time after the April challenge running SST and SDT. So we have been using the technique you showed me and then I showed Micro. The issue we ran into was that all of the Team SDT scripts have tried use sitters. None of them run without them. Though we still have to try Traitors Team SDT.

SupG you are starting to sound like an old school carpenter who loves his hammer, sneering at the guy using a new fangled nail-gun. And I am sure there is some guy somewhere sneering at your hammer thinking "Real traders use rocks, not hammers." They are just tools.

The trick is learning how to use all the available tools, then picking the right one for the job. BTW, the fake bust issue just comes up during the start of the sdt run regardless of the scripts used so the issue seems to be: keep better track of last port robbed and busts.

Haha, I actually don't have any problem with people automating - hell, I played a role in that. I just think actually knowing and understanding the game and how it works should be first and foremost.

Use all the scripts you want, just understand what those scripts are doing first.

Are you certain that the edit is set to clear busts daily and extern did run normally? This does sound like excessive fake busts.