Season 26 was missed out of the reports - as mentioned when changing the methodology, it relies on me being available on the Wednesday before the season end, and last time I wasn't. So, on to Season 27 - where we have the Live/Legacy split happening about half-way through... these leaderboard reports are for Live only, but in Season 28 I might check in on Legacy to see what things look like there. All else equal, you'd expect there to be some decrease as Legacy points won't have counted in the second half ... but of course, all else is not equal because there's a giant Thargoid war on.
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 measured season (in this case, 25). 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 (429 pages)
Winners: AXI with ~3% of all points. Lavigny's Legion and Marauders Vanguard take the other trophies.
A familiar three names on the AX podium this season, with fairly typical scores - more interesting is what's happening in the rest of the field. The total number of participating squadrons has almost doubled, and the total score likewise, meaning that the winner's share of the points falls to an all-time low. This season also sets a new record for estimated AX activity, smashing Season 25's recent record.
With Season 28 the first full season of the war - and the first half of this season relatively quiet in terms of Thargoid activity - that record might not hold for very long.
Combat (1036 pages)
Winners: Drinc Squadron with ~1% of all points. AXI and Canonn take the other trophies.
A new name for the Gold trophy, with the other two more well known. Activity at all levels of the leaderboard is significantly up on season 25, and the number of pages is back above 1000, making this the busiest combat season since Season 16 (early 2021) - and given the "previous season" leaderboard bug, it might even be closer than it looks. Again, with more Thargoid war participation boosting combat points, it's possible that Season 28 will see this rise continue.
CQC (34 pages)
Winners: Erion Corp with ~30% of all points. We Rock You Roll and Sonnenzorn take the other trophies.
Firstly, congratulations to the first new Gold CQC trophy winner since Season 14, and only the fourth ever, who achieve a strong million-plus score to take the trophy from WRYR in a fairly close fight ... and congratulations to Sonnenzorn for their first trophy too.
Unfortunately, total activity hits a record low, only 10% of that seen in the best season (15). Between some serious bugs, instancing issues, and some big new non-CQC content, it doesn't look like there's very much left here.
Exploration (1080 pages)
Winners: Canonn with ~3% of all points. Stellanebula Project and Intergalactic Astronomical Union take the other trophies.
Three familiar names at the top, and while overall activity is slightly down on season 25, scores are higher than before outside the top 200 - fewer dedicated explorers, but more people picking up points here and there, perhaps?
Powerplay (34 pages)
Winners: Madmen of the Mogonjo with ~12% of all points. Lavigny's Legion and Federal Liberal Command take the other trophies.
Pretty much another Standard Powerplay Season here - the usual three trophy winners, the usual total activity amount, and the usual number of squadrons.
There has been an attempt to organise at least a partial Powerplay truce to allow their supporters to focus on the Thargoid threat - we'll see in Season 28 if that's actually freed up any time!
Trade (928 pages)
Winners: Pilots Booze Network Squadron with ~1% of all points. Winged Hussars and Permanently High take the other trophies.
PBNS get another Gold, Winged Hussars the Silver, and a new name get the Bronze.
Squadron count is up by over 100 pages, and we see a similar pattern as with Exploration where there's less activity in most of the top 100, but very similar activity below that, compared to Season 25. As a result, this is one of the lowest seasons for total trade profits.
Other comments
Last season's predictions were that AX would stay strong and CQC would suffer further - which were both true, but by even more than I expected in both cases. (Admittedly, those were technically predictions for the missed Season 26)
Total active squadrons is above 1000 again - now that the methodology is working around the leaderboard bug, ups and downs in this number are much more likely. We'll see how it does.
Despite the Live/Legacy split, on balance activity in Live appears to be slightly up on the pre-split numbers, though the patterns have changed slightly. There'll be more to look at on this in Season 28 - which will be entirely post-split but probably not include changes from the planned Update 15. It'll also be possible to see how much activity is left in (PC) Legacy [1], and how this affects the boards.
As above, I wouldn't be surprised to see another record season for both AX and Combat as the Second Thargoid War continues - other leaderboards may well be more static (or in CQC's case, continuing to collapse) but there's still room for events to change that.
[1] Other measures of the split are also available. On EDDN activity, virtually all (>99% of that with an identifiable version) is on Live. For traffic reports, in the Colonia System [2] around 80% of traffic is on Live, with the rest on Legacy: this is fairly close to earlier estimates of the PC vs Console split, so it'll be interesting to see how the Season 28 PC Leaderboards compare with each other and whether they're more like 99:1 or more like 80:20. Somewhere in between seems likely!
[2] Massive off-topic aside on Colonia traffic: predictions that the Thargoids would cause a mass exodus to Colonia have so far failed to be noticeably true - Live+Legacy traffic now is very comparable to total traffic before. This wouldn't affect the squadron leaderboards much, however, though it might change the balance between AX and non-AX activities if people did flee en masse.
