Previously: seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8, 9,10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 (plus How large are squadrons?)
On each graph, points are on the Y-axis, and squadron position on the leaderboard is on the X-axis. Both scales are logarithmic. The light grey line (diamond marker) is the numbers for the previous season, the dark grey line (triangle marker) is the numbers for the same season last year (season 3), and all stats are PC only. As in previous seasons, the approximate power-law distribution continues, allowing estimates of total activity to be made without spending too long reading the boards.
(Political is excluded, because there are well-known exploits to allow very high scores, and because it's not clear even without the exploits what it's supposed to be measuring: the in-game description of "large and happy faction" is clearly wrong - possibly this will change if they ever implement BGS happiness properly)
Anti Xeno (310 pages)
Winners: Lavigny's Legion with ~16% of all points. Marauders Vanguard and AXI take the other trophies.
AX activity back up again - not quite as high as Season 15, but close, possibly with the interest around the Alexandria and Hesperus plot lines and the attacks on various nebula stations getting people more anti-Thargoid action. The total number of active AX squadrons also hits a new record.
Combat (2464 pages)
Winners: New Pilots Initiative with ~1% of all points. AXI and Lavigny's Legion take the other trophies.
New Pilots Initiative take their fourth consecutive Gold here, as scores across the board see a significant drop from last season. While still higher than any pre-rebalance season by quite a way, it's also the lowest post-rebalance season, likely due to Odyssey combat either not contributing at all or only counting as Harmless targets - for similar reasons, I've seen significant drops in local bounty hunting cash values.
CQC (140 pages)
Winners: We Rock You Roll with ~18% of all points. Remlok Industries and Lavigny's Legion take the other places.
Another Gold for We Rock You Roll, and with Remlok Industries and Lavigny's Legion both taking trophies, CQC Discord's run of trophies comes to an end. Overall squadron participation is down quite a bit, as are general amounts, against the general trend of the squadron leaderboards - the Horizons/Odyssey split even applying to CQC is a big problem for the game mode as it dilutes the player base even further, so this board probably won't return to its previous levels until the console release reunifies the player base.
Exploration (2712 pages)
Winners: Canonn with ~2% of all points. Stellanebula Project and the Intergalactic Astronomical Union take the other trophies.
Canonn get a second consecutive gold, Stellanebula Project get their first exploration trophy to go with their combat trophy from last season, and IGAU pick up their fifth. Overall participating squadrons are up - more on that later - though the totals are down. Odyssey, again, possibly causing some of this as the new exobiology doesn't count towards this leaderboard, and by encouraging mapping of otherwise obscure icy and rocky moons is not good for traditional exploration points collection.
Powerplay (105 pages)
Winners: Federal Liberal Command with ~21% of all points. Lavigny's Legion and Aisling's Angels take the other trophies.
Federal Liberal Command break their own record by a big margin with over 5 million merits this season, with overall activity otherwise being fairly flat, and the other two places taken by the regularly-seen Imperial groups.
Trade (2466 pages)
Winners: Pilots Trade Network Squadron with ~5% of all points. Royal Colonial Guard and Turkish Galactic Empire take the other trophies.
A significant performance from the winners here, who become the only group outside the anomalous Season 11 to break one trillion credits of trade profit in a single season. Profits in general are up across the board, too, from last time - though that trillion credits also gives them the highest ever percentage of total estimated profit for a single squadron.
Other comments
As expected, we broke the 2500 page barrier ... by a clear 212 pages, the third highest season-on-season increase in active squadrons on record.
Some notable achievements on the boards all-round - Lavigny's Legion become only the second group to score four trophies in a single season ... Federal Liberal Command are now the only squadron to have a won at least one trophy in every single season ... and some impressive scores and winning streaks on the individual leaderboards too.
Let's see how those predictions of mine from last time did...
AX: there weren't Thargoids walking about, but there were plenty more in space than usual, so up anyway.
Combat: there was a bit of a rebalance since Alpha about granting of combat rank for Odyssey activities, which makes sense but even then I wouldn't have predicted quite this large a drop.
CQC: when I made the prediction, it was before the Horizons/Odyssey server split for CQC was announced. Didn't see that coming at all, would have made a very different prediction if I'd known.
Exploration: predicted a small increase, got a small drop, partly because in that original prediction I didn't think through what looking for plants would do well enough
Powerplay: predicted stable, got stable! Hey, 1/6 is better than the 0/0 the rest of you got.
Trade: clearly I underestimated just how much people like money anyway.
Season 18 will be the first fully-Odyssey season on PC, so it'll be interesting to see if that continues these trends or they return to normal as the expansion settles in.
On each graph, points are on the Y-axis, and squadron position on the leaderboard is on the X-axis. Both scales are logarithmic. The light grey line (diamond marker) is the numbers for the previous season, the dark grey line (triangle marker) is the numbers for the same season last year (season 3), and all stats are PC only. As in previous seasons, the approximate power-law distribution continues, allowing estimates of total activity to be made without spending too long reading the boards.
(Political is excluded, because there are well-known exploits to allow very high scores, and because it's not clear even without the exploits what it's supposed to be measuring: the in-game description of "large and happy faction" is clearly wrong - possibly this will change if they ever implement BGS happiness properly)
Anti Xeno (310 pages)
Winners: Lavigny's Legion with ~16% of all points. Marauders Vanguard and AXI take the other trophies.
AX activity back up again - not quite as high as Season 15, but close, possibly with the interest around the Alexandria and Hesperus plot lines and the attacks on various nebula stations getting people more anti-Thargoid action. The total number of active AX squadrons also hits a new record.
Combat (2464 pages)
Winners: New Pilots Initiative with ~1% of all points. AXI and Lavigny's Legion take the other trophies.
New Pilots Initiative take their fourth consecutive Gold here, as scores across the board see a significant drop from last season. While still higher than any pre-rebalance season by quite a way, it's also the lowest post-rebalance season, likely due to Odyssey combat either not contributing at all or only counting as Harmless targets - for similar reasons, I've seen significant drops in local bounty hunting cash values.
CQC (140 pages)
Winners: We Rock You Roll with ~18% of all points. Remlok Industries and Lavigny's Legion take the other places.
Another Gold for We Rock You Roll, and with Remlok Industries and Lavigny's Legion both taking trophies, CQC Discord's run of trophies comes to an end. Overall squadron participation is down quite a bit, as are general amounts, against the general trend of the squadron leaderboards - the Horizons/Odyssey split even applying to CQC is a big problem for the game mode as it dilutes the player base even further, so this board probably won't return to its previous levels until the console release reunifies the player base.
Exploration (2712 pages)
Winners: Canonn with ~2% of all points. Stellanebula Project and the Intergalactic Astronomical Union take the other trophies.
Canonn get a second consecutive gold, Stellanebula Project get their first exploration trophy to go with their combat trophy from last season, and IGAU pick up their fifth. Overall participating squadrons are up - more on that later - though the totals are down. Odyssey, again, possibly causing some of this as the new exobiology doesn't count towards this leaderboard, and by encouraging mapping of otherwise obscure icy and rocky moons is not good for traditional exploration points collection.
Powerplay (105 pages)
Winners: Federal Liberal Command with ~21% of all points. Lavigny's Legion and Aisling's Angels take the other trophies.
Federal Liberal Command break their own record by a big margin with over 5 million merits this season, with overall activity otherwise being fairly flat, and the other two places taken by the regularly-seen Imperial groups.
Trade (2466 pages)
Winners: Pilots Trade Network Squadron with ~5% of all points. Royal Colonial Guard and Turkish Galactic Empire take the other trophies.
A significant performance from the winners here, who become the only group outside the anomalous Season 11 to break one trillion credits of trade profit in a single season. Profits in general are up across the board, too, from last time - though that trillion credits also gives them the highest ever percentage of total estimated profit for a single squadron.
Other comments
As expected, we broke the 2500 page barrier ... by a clear 212 pages, the third highest season-on-season increase in active squadrons on record.
Some notable achievements on the boards all-round - Lavigny's Legion become only the second group to score four trophies in a single season ... Federal Liberal Command are now the only squadron to have a won at least one trophy in every single season ... and some impressive scores and winning streaks on the individual leaderboards too.
Let's see how those predictions of mine from last time did...
...unsurprisingly, I was almost completely wrong.
AX: there weren't Thargoids walking about, but there were plenty more in space than usual, so up anyway.
Combat: there was a bit of a rebalance since Alpha about granting of combat rank for Odyssey activities, which makes sense but even then I wouldn't have predicted quite this large a drop.
CQC: when I made the prediction, it was before the Horizons/Odyssey server split for CQC was announced. Didn't see that coming at all, would have made a very different prediction if I'd known.
Exploration: predicted a small increase, got a small drop, partly because in that original prediction I didn't think through what looking for plants would do well enough
Powerplay: predicted stable, got stable! Hey, 1/6 is better than the 0/0 the rest of you got.
Trade: clearly I underestimated just how much people like money anyway.
Season 18 will be the first fully-Odyssey season on PC, so it'll be interesting to see if that continues these trends or they return to normal as the expansion settles in.
