Season 18 Squadron Results - Graphs and Analysis

[Ian Doncaster]

Previously: seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8, 9,10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 (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 (218 pages)
Winners: Marauders Vanguard with ~37% of all points. AXI and Browncoat Uprising take the other trophies.
After last season's record, the drop this time is quite large. Marauders Vanguard file an extremely large score to take the Gold ... everyone else is down quite a lot on the previous season. The "last year" line on the graph is from before the payment increases for AX work, so isn't directly comparable. Still the second largest season for total number of participating squadrons, but the contribution per squadron is the lowest since the payment increases - perhaps reflecting the relative quietness on the Thargoid fronts compared with recent seasons.

Combat (2441 pages)
Winners: Stellanebula Project with ~1% of all points. Canonn and AXI take the other trophies.
A Gold for Stellanebula Project to add to their earlier Combat Silver and Exploration Silver, and a first combat trophy for Canonn as well. Combat is slightly up in overall activity compared with the previous season, and had the smallest drop in participating squadrons.

CQC (97 pages)
Winners: We Rock You Roll with ~17% of all points. CQC Discord and Black Birds Squadron take the other places.
The usual two entries for Gold and Silver, then a new name taking the Bronze. Overall activity is its lowest ever on this board, which is being hit very severely by the Horizons/Odyssey instancing split. Not much to do but wait until that's over.

Exploration (2673 pages)
Winners: IGAU with ~3% of all points. Canonn and Argus Defence Fleet take the other trophies.
A fairly close contest between leaderboard regulars IGAU and Canonn for the top two places, then a big gap to the third place, where another new name gets the trophy. Overall activity is down quite a bit, though the estimates don't put this as the quietest season.

Powerplay (89 pages)
Winners: Federal Liberal Command with ~13% of all points. Lavigny's Legion and Aisling's Angels take the other trophies.
The same winners as last season in the same order. Total volume is down, though still remains historically high - though a look at the graph shows just how little variation there normally is season to season, with this season, last season and last year all extremely similar.

Trade (2312 pages)
Winners: Pilots Trade Network Squadron with ~3% of all points. Cosmic Independent Agency and New Pilots Initiative take the other trophies.
Similar pattern to last season, with a big score from the winners - who take their second consecutive gold - and a more normal relationship between places for the rest. New Pilots Initiative move to the Trade leaderboard after four seasons in Combat, while Cosmic Independent Agency pick up their first trophy (and also get a Political Silver). You can see on the graph just how anomalous last year's Season 11 was for trade!

Other comments
So here is the first fully Odyssey season. Those paying close attention will have noticed the biggest change - unlike every other season, the total number of active squadrons has gone down! ... by 39 pages, which is not significantly different to where the long term trend would have put it anyway. Not exactly "doom", but still a sign of how shaky the Odyssey launch has been that it dropped at all. Pretty good chance that it'll return to trend next time, though, as it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as affected by ... well, anything ... as other activity measures are.

In terms of activity, most boards are down a bit - except Combat, which is generally slightly higher. It's hard to tell how much of this is due to lower activity in general, and how much of it is due to Odyssey activity not being scored. (Combat can get points from Odyssey activity, which may explain its stability compared with Season 17) The exception here is CQC, which is really suffering - perhaps a chance for a surprise Gold next time, if anyone is looking for an opportunity?

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

Very nice. Trade looks to be down on the previous year compared to combat and exploration.

It is a shame that the console Squadrons can't be included. Maybe we will see Squadron/cross platform integration at some point in the future.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

An indication of the types of players rage-quitting over Odyssey? Interesting that powerplay numbers are robust through it all - it's a long game and people's investment isn't easily abandoned. Trade is the one that's collapsed a bit - a typical lone player activity, but without the mitigating factors applying to things like exploration (i.e. new content and aesthetics) and others you mention?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Trade is one where you can't get a particularly good year-on-year comparison, because Season 11 is "the one where 'everyone' [1] exploited the mining payout imbalances to buy their fleet carrier". It was ridiculously over-the-top.

Trade is the one that's collapsed a bit - a typical lone player activity, but without the mitigating factors applying to things like exploration (i.e. new content and aesthetics) and others you mention

Equally, trade is the one - of the three "main" leaderboards, anyway - where doing Odyssey stuff won't affect it at all. If you're doing exobiology you have to explore a bit as well ... a lot of the Odyssey missions can gain combat rank if you go for the "carpet bomb from your ship" approach to them ... but nothing in Odyssey touches trade, I think. (Or if it does, only very marginally)

It's quite hard to separate out "drops because Odyssey drove people off" and "drops because Odyssey got people doing other stuff which doesn't show up on the boards" - well, the "doom" and "not doom" people can debate that one elsewhere

It is a shame that the console Squadrons can't be included.

I'd be very happy to start including them - just needs someone with a console account to write down and send me the data. (places 1-10, 20, 30 ... 100, 200, 300 ... 1000)

[1] No, not actually everyone, obviously.

 

[Northpin]

So here is the first fully Odyssey season. Those paying close attention will have noticed the biggest change - unlike every other season, the total number of active squadrons has gone down! ... by 39 pages, which is not significantly different to where the long term trend would have put it anyway. Not exactly "doom", but still a sign of how shaky the Odyssey launch has been that it dropped at all. Pretty good chance that it'll return to trend next time, though, as it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as affected by ... well, anything ... as other activity measures are.

Couldn't simply mean that the players that got Odyssey spent their time doing Odyssey only stuff.
For example, since EDO launch i spend all my time in EDO only stuff - i didnt even took part in a single CG while before EDO i was a regular aiming for top25% if not more...
No exploration, no trading, nothing else but EDO settlements and some vaguely EDO exobiology
And i'm pretty sure i'm not that special to be one of a kind

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Couldn't simply mean that the players that got Odyssey spent their time doing Odyssey only stuff.

I'd say no, for two reasons.

1) Season 17 (which was more Odyssey than not) had a big rise on Season 16.
2) It's really difficult to avoid getting on to the exploration leaderboard at all in the course of other activities - including Odyssey-specific ones: you'll map planets to find salvage POIs and life forms, you'll visit new systems and at least autoscan the primary star as you unlock the Odyssey engineers or go to the new settlements.

You'd have to not only do Odyssey-only activities for the entire season, you'd have to do a fairly limited subset of those, solely in systems you'd already visited.

The decrease in total score on the Exploration board, that could easily be due to people taking more time in systems to hunt out surface life, and "wasting" time mapping cheap ice/rock balls that would previously have been ignored. The decrease in total active squadrons ... no.

 

[Northpin]

2) is not that difficult.
For example i spend my time in 3 systems only How many planets one can scan in 3 systems?
And only 3 because getting allied with factions in too many systems is not that easy - being allied means one can negotiate those fat rewards with them NPC
Not 2 mention that those 3 systems provide me with a varied enough settlement types that i can do all the missions and find all the materials i need to

And indeed, EDO does not make Exploration more productive since Exobiology is such a time sink, but it may increase the number of mapped planets since one needs to do that for EDO POIs

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Oh, sure, you personally might not appear on the exploration leaderboards.

But I don't think Frontier would be taking the path they are if the primary reason for the drop in Horizons-focused metrics was "everyone is enjoying Odyssey so much they're not doing the previous bits"

I've been mainly playing Odyssey content as well - Horizons content only where it fits in (e.g. if I'm going from A to B for a mission, I'll take trade goods if appropriate ... e.g. if I'm scanning systems for life forms I'll sell the data) - and my Exploration and Trade ranks have still advanced faster than my Mercenary and Exobiology ones. (Combat has been pretty slow - but of course Combat is the one which has actually gone up Season 17 -> Season 18 for the leaderboards as a whole!)

 

[Northpin]

Combat is the one which has actually gone up Season 17 -> Season 18 for the leaderboards as a whole!)

Well... this can be sort of a bug.
My Combat Rank increased from Dangerous to Deadly and my Mercenary rank increased to Gunslinger only by doing On-Foot Combat.
Exclusively On-foot combat.
Since EDO launched i think i destroyed 1 single ship (and ironically enough, it was a npc clean ship) - yet my pilot rank increased to Deadly. All those Scavs counted dearly to my combat rank... Actually they counted more to the combat rank than to the Mercenary rank - or so it seems

 

[Erei]

Well... this can be sort of a bug.
My Combat Rank increased from Dangerous to Deadly and my Mercenary rank increased to Gunslinger only by doing On-Foot Combat.
Exclusively On-foot combat.
Since EDO launched i think i destroyed 1 single ship (and ironically enough, it was a npc clean ship) - yet my pilot rank increased to Deadly. All those Scavs counted dearly to my combat rank... Actually they counted more to the combat rank than to the Mercenary rank - or so it seems

Apparently, people you kill outside CZ are counted for combat rank as if they were elite ships. Some people have been farming them for that. According to what I read, it's irrelevant whether you kill them with your ship or not.
CZ NPC are counted for mercenary rank and not combat rank.

Expect it to be fixed at some point.

 

[Northpin]

Apparently, people you kill outside CZ are counted for combat rank as if they were elite ships. Some people have been farming them for that. According to what I read, it's irrelevant whether you kill them with your ship or not.
CZ NPC are counted for mercenary rank and not combat rank.

Expect it to be fixed at some point.

Certainly not.
I got promoted in both combat and mercenary ranks while doing random missions (involving scavs and/or settlement massacre and/or assassinations).
I did a rather small amount of CZ - what was needed for unlock and several other after Update 5 (i guess?)... then i gave up on CZ since them NPC were standing stupid.
I dont really enjoy shooting stands.