Gifting

Gifting only sort of works. I have been told that about 25% of gifts are actually received. My own tests indicate that it's hit or miss. This introduces an element of frustration and difficulty, but you have to just turn a blind eye to it. Gifting is very important. 

Why?

Because gifting is the only way to get certain items. If you get the parts to make a diamond in the Techlab, for example, you will add 1 attack to Sin - if you have her and if you keep the diamond. You can also use the diamond to start the Red Phoenix Core job. 

In some cases, you can't do the dice job for a district unless you have a skull medallion, for instance. I try not to use my last skull medallion (you use them to start the Skull King boss job) so I can do the dice job it permits. Plus, medallions count as gear in PvP War. 

But the best reason to gift is to be able to try to build the Sara LT. Sara has 5 parts, and four of them come from Boss Drops where you need a TechLab item to start the job. 

The rule of thumb for gifting is that if your intended recipient has accepted your previous gift, you can gift them again. It seems to me that you can gift about 15-20 people every 15 minutes, but I don't know the exact specification.

I try to gift a page of my allies every half hour or so. I only get one or two gifts back. Since you know it's a leaky process, and you want a lot of stuff back, gift early, gift often, and try to get all of the people in your empire to help. 

Don't be discouraged. This game is about persistence, if nothing else.