Release Club Raiders: Fighting the Club in the BGS

[Erlaed]

What is The Club

• An organization that controls Elite: Dangerous behind the scenes
• Conceived by David Braben
• Featured in GalNet and the novels
• Clearly and repeatedly fingered as "The Bad Guys" in Elite: Dangerous
• The enemy of The Dark Wheel
• Only two known ways to interact with them: BGS and Powerplay
• Their history was documented by The Children of Raxxla in "The Holdstock Report"

What is Club Raiders?

• A web-based tool and a loose community
• Working from The Holdstock Report, we identified in-game Club-related minor factions
• Built software to analyze the minor factions looking for strengths and weaknesses
• Helps CMDRs and Squadrons identify juicy Club targets
• Tracks progress globally and regionally

How does it work?

• In the main "Activities" tab, you can select where you are and what you want to do (11 activities such as war zones, bounty hunting, trading, exploring) and get back a table of candidates.
• Click on a row in the table for in depth analysis, suggestions, and links to other sites like eddb.io and elitebgs.app to help you refine your strategy.
• The "Explore ClubSpace" tab does a similar job, but from the starting point of a 3D interactive Star Chart. You can pan and zoom your way throughout the whole map, select your squadron's area of operations, or look through the 10 clusters of highest Club activity.
• The "About The Club" tab gives some information the Club-related minor factions on and background on how they were identified.
• The "About Club Raiders" tab gives some information the project and the open source code that makes it run.

What's Next?

What we need to move forward are:

• independent commanders to travel around as they see fit, forcing Club retreats from the 80-or-so very easy systems, and
• squadrons to take aim at Club factions in their Area of Operations and remove them as they see fit
• volunteers to help spread the word to the community

How can we communicate?

• This forum thread is a great way to communicate.
• The Club Raiders home Discord is shared with the Pleiades Historical Society, available at https://discord.gg/PdaCsRA

Where's the app?

• https://club-raiders.herokuapp.com/

 

[Erlaed]

[T]hey know everything. They have the history – not the sanitised version from the public records, but the truth... Challenge the authorities. Force their hand. Refuse to be manipulated. Do not rise to their provocations. Make your own powerplays, organise embargoes and blockade the ports. Break their hold and force them out into the open. Blaze a trail. Visibility is the one thing they cannot abide. Or do nothing. Be content to be a pawn in their game. - Salome's Requiem

Overview

At time of writing, the 32 Club minor factions are currently active in 169 systems, spanning the galaxy from Sirius

Corporation in Sothis, 352 light years west of Sol to Gallant Investment Brokers in Exphiay, 283 light years to the east. As far as we know, they can be kicked out of 135 of these systems - the other 34 being home systems and code-locked Aegis instances. Currently, 69 of these are rated as "very easy for a single commander" to force a reatreat and a few are truly Herculean tasks that would require multiple-squadron effort. At time of writing, 7 Club factions are at war, 4 are in elections, 6 are expanding, and 4 are retreating. These statistics are tracked and updated daily on the web site.

The Factions

The 32 minor factions that were shown in The Holdstock Report to be part of Club operations. While many more connections exist than are indicated on the diagram, attempting to draw them produces something closely resembling a plate of spaghetti. Player minor factions, even those with suspicious names, are omitted as targets of Club Raiders.

Several of the factions have names that are familiar to many commanders: Sirius, Aegis, Janus, Turner, Peterson. Some are regional powers like Wreaken Construction, the Benton factions, and Hodack Prison Colony. Some like Reyan BPS and Worster Insurance might be faint memories from a community goal or a GalNet article unless you're a real Lorehead.

Their Presence
Only 18 of the 32 Club-related minor factions are currently present in multiple systems (excluding Aegis Defense, which is present in 2 unpopulated systems). Over 80% of these systems fall into 10 clusters or regions of high activity. The regions are:

1. Merope - in the Pleiades, 380ly from Sol, where you'll find Sirius Mining Merope, Janus Incorporated, Aegis Research, and Aegis Defense
2. "The Rectangle" - between the Pleiades and the Bubble, formed by four Club faction home systems: Ngalia, Ross 591, Socho, and 64 Ceti,
3. "California" - 991ly from Sol, centered at California Sector BA-A e6, a Turner stronghold
4. Sirius - less than 10ly from Sol, home of the Sirius group of companies
5. Xi Shan - 183ly from Sol, home of Sirius Luxury Transports and Sirius Mining
6. Abroin - 150ly from Sol, home of Abroin Universal PLC
7. Bentonia - centered at HIP 51652, 174ly from Sol, home of The Bentonian Party
8. Hodack - 79ly from Sol, home of Hodack Prison Colony, a subsidary of Wreaken Construction
9. Wreaken - centered at Ega, 120ly from Sol, home of Wreaken Construction
10. CQC - centered at CD-43 11917, 80ly from Sol, home of CQC Holdings

The app has global and regional faction presence data updated daily and presented in tabular form as well as a 3D interactive maps.

 

[Erlaed]

Spoiler: Dated info

Current War Zones

Spoiler: Dated info

Wars are one of many good ways to swing a faction's influence. As of this morning, the wars in progress are:

Hodack Region

• Delkar: Hodack Prison Colony lost 0-4
• Komovoy: Hodack Prison Colony lost 2-4
• Solati: Hodack Prison Colony lost 0-4
• Helgaedi: Hodack Prison Colony lost 2-4
• Oguninksmii: Hodack Prison Colony lost 0-4
• LHS 2477: Hodack Prison Colony lost 1-4 (medium pads orbital + 1 large planetary. Helgaedi is a good base.)
• Dhathaarib: Hodack Prison Colony lost 0-4 (medium pads. Helgaedi is a good base. )
• Solati: Hodack Prison Colony losing 0-2, 2nd war here in about a week

CQC Region

• Mang: QCQ Holdings lost
• Hun Chonses: CQC Holdings won
• Li Bestina: CQC Holdings tied 0-0

Wreaken Region

• Dyavata - Wreaken Construction tied 0-0

Xi Shan Region

• Vito - Sirius Luxury Transports tied 0-0

 

[Erlaed]

[RESERVED]

 

[Psyral]

Tonight's Elite Dangerous Formidine Rift rendezvous location is EAFOTS EU-R c4-1 planet C2 (NB - significant supercruise distance!) We will be discussing "The Club".

8pm UK Time (UTC+1) twitch.tv/drewwagar

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Havvk]

What if I assault Sirius where they live, in Sirius?

 

[Erlaed]

What if I assault Sirius where they live, in Sirius?

For all we know, that could be the key to everything.

But because of the high population it would take a lot of effort to affect their influence much, and they're at 59 or so. Even if you did, since it's their home system, you couldn't kick them out of the system. Maybe if they lose a certain base it could trigger something.

On the other hand, there are a lot of systems like LHS 2887 that has a population of 1500, influence of 11.59, and they're losing an election 1-2 right now. A single CMDR could kick Sirius Corp out of that system pretty easily over the course of a week or so.

But we don't know what the key is, or if there even is a key. It's all guesswork and experimentation for now.

 

[Erlaed]

August Results to Date

7 faction instances removed, 2 expanded, a net loss for the Club of 5 systems:

• Janus Incorporated removed Pleiades Sector DL-Y D65.
• Sirius Mining Merope retreated from Pleione, Celaeno, and HR 1183.
• Wreaken Construction removed from system HIP 78267
• Aegis Research removed from system Celaeno
• Sirius Corporation removed from system Ross 47
• Sirius Mining expanded to HIP 44560 and Ben Sakha.

Pleiades Anti-Club/Lore Squadron + Discord

PLEIADES HISTORICAL SOCIETY [PLOR] has formed to explore the mysteries of the Pleiades, and to combat regional factions affiliated with The Club: Aegis Research, Janus Incorporated, Pleiades Resource Enterprise, and Sirius Mining Merope. The mystery of HIP 22460 is of particular interest, including The Black Flight, Megaship Overlook, and the involvement of Pleiades Resource Enterprise.

Members and non-members welcome at the discord server: https://discord.gg/BQUuSYP. A fair amount of resources and guides are available for research.

Active Campaigns

• Wolf 202
• LHS 2887
• Pleione
• Pleiades Sector PD-S b4-0

 

[Erlaed]

September Summary for #fight-the-club

In September we did fewer, more difficult operations in systems with active player factions and significant traffic. Since June 1, we have removed 19 Club factions from systems representing 2.4 billion people. Significantly, this month, Club faction Sirius Mining Merope - which at one point was active in seven systems, now exists only as a zombie faction in Merope.

We're pleased to announce that squadron Close Encounter Corps, led by CMDR @AntonyVern [СЕС] have joined the fight against the Club. Besides their help in the campaigns in Pleiades Sector PD-S b4-0, Hemaki, and Wolf 202 - working with a large squadron has led to a number of improvements to the discord, which will be valuable when other squadrons join the fight.

Gains & Losses

• Sirius Mining Merope removed from system Pleiades Sector PD-S b4-0.
• Aegis Research removed from system Pleione.
• Pleiades Resource Enterprise removed from Delphi.
• Sirius Hot2Cold removed from system Hemaki.
• Sirius Hyperspace removed from system Wolf 202.
• Mysterious new holdings in 42 N Persei removed from Club faction PRE.
• Delphi confirmed as home system for Aegis Research and Janus Incorporated.
  
  
• CQC Holdings expanded to Guttun.

Active Campaigns

Daik - Sirius Hyperspace (Close Encounter Corps + Pleiades Historical Society)

Squadron & Discord

PLEIADES HISTORICAL SOCIETY [PLOR] formed in August to explore the mysteries of the Pleiades, and to combat regional factions affiliated with The Club: Aegis Research, Janus Incorporated, Pleiades Resource Enterprise, and Sirius Mining Merope. The mystery of HIP 22460 is of particular interest, including The Black Flight, Megaship Overlook, and the involvement of Pleiades Resource Enterprise.

Everyone interested in fighting the club is welcome at the discord server: https://discord.gg/PdaCsRA

 

[Erlaed]

Plans are starting to percolate for a major offensive against Pleiades Resource Enterprise in a top-tier system. Plenty of room to welcome players that enjoy exploration, trade, running missions, combat, and piracy/murder for an operation that should take about 2-3 weeks. Want to learn more about the BGS - this is a good opportunity. One major and one minor squadron are involved in the planning. Find out more at the PHS discord: https://discord.gg/PdaCsRA.

 

[Erlaed]

On 10 November 2016, the Federation directed Pleiades Resource Enterprise to "take control of Maia" from the Ant Hill Mob, the faction that built the Pleiades' flagship station Obsidian Orbital. As a result of a series of community goals, they took control of the system in a matter of a few weeks. Eight months later, Canonn reported the Black Flight megaship Overlook was hiding in the permit-locked HIP 22460 system, which is controlled by PRE. Around that time, The Black Flight attacked multiple civilian operations including Survey Vessels Pandora and Victoria's Song and shut down Communications Hub Zeta-12.

Despite interaction with hundreds or thousands of commanders, over a period of four years, PRE has never issued a permit to the HIP 22460 system. Besides hiding the Overlook, we know there is a Thargoid Surface site in the system - is there something special about this particular site? We'd sure like to know!

Since taking Maia, PRE has been involved in a number of skirmishes, especially jockeying for power with the Empire's Merope Expeditionary Fleet. Under their stewardship, during a general Thargoid retreat from the Bubble, the Thargoids staged a focused attack on the Palin Research Center in Maia, which caused Palin to abandon his facility and retreat, under mysterious circumstances, back to the Bubble.

We know that PRE's control of Maia has not been successful. What if Maia was held by an independent faction, not beholden to any of the three powers? We know PRE is hiding information, and no commander has been able to access it over a period of four years. We know PRE is supporting the Black Flight - an organization that attacks unarmed vessels and commanders on sight. Would information flow more freely if the system were controlled by another faction?

We feel it's time to take Maia from Pleiades Resource Enterprise. It's time to change the game.

 

[Erlaed]

October Summary for #fight-the-club

October has been an interesting month in the fight against The Club.

Close Encounter Corps, led by CMDR @AntonyVern [СЕС] have expanded the fight against the Club on several fronts. CMDR DrofaVV translated Jarrus Tano's 2018 Holdstock Report to Russian <https://vk.com/@close_encounters_corps-novosti-soobschestv-i-gal67> . Anton is regularly broadcasting Russian Club news to his audience of 25,000 зрелищный CMDRs . CEC and Pleiades Historical Society (PLOR) curbstomped the Club in two operations: systems Sirius Hyperspace used to control, and are now banished from. We consulted, and decided to stab out at a white whale: to remove Pleiades Resource Enterprise from Maia. We're very pleased to announce that within a few light years of the Maia campaign, our friends at AXI (managed by the Octogoid Hero CMDR Maligno) and HIVE are removing PRE from Pleione and HIP 17692 respectively. Also, the fledgling squadron PLOR has doubled in size - check my math, I dare you.

Suomalaiset komentajat, taisteletko kanssamme?

Bye, Felicia
o Sirius Hyperspace removed from Daik & Mooramba.
o Sirius Hot2Cold removed from Hemaki.
o CQC Holdings removed from Ye'kua'gsa.
o Aegis Research removed from HIP 17692

Active Campaigns
o Maia - Removing Pleiades Resource Enterprise
o Pleione - HIVE Removing Pleiades Resource Enterprise
o HIP 17692 - AXI Removing Pleiades Resource Enterprise

Squadron & Discord
In August PLEIADES HISTORICAL SOCIETY [PLOR] formed to explore the mysteries of the Pleiades, and combat regional Club factions: Aegis Research, Janus Incorporated, Pleiades Resource Enterprise, and Sirius Mining Merope. The mystery of HIP 22460 is of particular interest, including The Black Flight, Megaship Overlook, and the involvement of Pleiades Resource Enterprise.

Everyone interested in fighting the club is welcome at the discord server: <https://discord.gg/PdaCsRA>