ok, in my ignorance because I am relatively new to the warrior side of this game...............What the heck is a SOFA??

Its a sub orbital fighter attack. You can send fighters in to try and take dwon defences of the planet itself, however there is risk as sometimes you will get a backlash from the planetary defence.

It's a way to send in fighters to attack the planets shields and fighters to drain the planet of energy and fighters.

The planet will try to defend itself.

There is a chance the planets beams will do upto 4 times the normal damage to your ship and that could really hurt the attacker and in some cases destroy them.

Thanks. I think I understood a bit more once the term was placed with the lingo.