How nice of you.
Tracking exploration activity
- Thread starter marx
- Start date
More about the latest results: I've added something that's somewhat buried, since it's in the "Extended snapshot" subsheet which contains data from 2019. Sept.: an exact comparison of the ELW/AW numbers between then and the current ones. I didn't notice that AWs only started getting revisited in larger numbers after DW2 ended. Plus I was a bit wrong about the rate there, it's not much higher than that of ELWs. It seems to have been higher since, especially in 2020, but I don't have data from then to compare it with.
The ELWs / systems ratio certainly has been showing a marked increase since 2019 December though.
The ELWs / systems ratio certainly has been showing a marked increase since 2019 December though.
Time for the April 2020 update, and this time around, the end results turned out to be quite interesting. First, the previous month's return to form / decline reversed and turned into a nice increase... but only when it comes to new systems. With those, it's the highest it has been since DW2 ended, although the 1.26 million is still only reaches the level of when DW2 was ending. Bear in mind that this is during a time when Steam players have pretty much doubled, what with the gold rush for fleet carriers.
But when it comes to bodies scanned and stars auto-scanned, we get some surprising results: both have been falling and have hit new lows. It seems this has actually been going on since the middle of March, but it just looked like a slight downturn from the usual variation then, and I didn't expect it all to continue throughout April. As another interesting piece, the number of Earth-likes in particular has dropped like a rock. Ammonia worlds were also hit, but not as much, which also led to a funny little bit where the AW / ELW ratio has reached a record high: 1.82 AWs for every ELW. (Not that I'd reach too much into that.)
If you compare the systems to the bodies / systems ratio, you'll notice that the two lines swapped places - again. This has happened before, during DW2: as systems visited increased, B/S decreased, then as it ended and systems started falling, B/S started increasing. In fact, the only time when the gains of one didn't accompany the losses of the either were during the holiday sale gains earlier in the year: so, rather than this time being the anomaly, that one might have been it instead. (Also, on a daily breakdown, note that whenever the weekend peaks in new systems come, body scans are at their lowest.)
So, what does this actually mean? Bear in mind the general context: since the five billion fleet carrier price was revealed, and then it came to light that the real costs will be even higher, players have flocked to the diamond rush in Borann. Once the current squadron season ends, I look forward to @Ian Doncaster compiling the various leaderboards: we'll all see there how the trade one shot up. (A quick glance at the top 10 shows that despite that during these five weeks, the activity has been double than that of the previous season's eight weeks.) The most likely explanation for what we're seeing would be that explorers would rush back to join in on the credit shower as well. (Anecdotally, several people I know did that too.) It might also explain why the auto-scanned stars also dropped, although it would be best to see a graph of neutron boosts over time for this.
What we might be seeing then is the dropping out of less dedicated explorers, same as during DW2, and the more dedicated ones remaining. In comparison, the time when systems increased and bodies / systems didn't drop might have been when there was an influx of new explorers. Orrr I could have forgotten about something, and there's more at play here too. (Remember that things started going down in the middle of March, some eleven days before the fleet carriers' price reveal.) We'll see how things go then, and where the bottoms will be at.
But when it comes to bodies scanned and stars auto-scanned, we get some surprising results: both have been falling and have hit new lows. It seems this has actually been going on since the middle of March, but it just looked like a slight downturn from the usual variation then, and I didn't expect it all to continue throughout April. As another interesting piece, the number of Earth-likes in particular has dropped like a rock. Ammonia worlds were also hit, but not as much, which also led to a funny little bit where the AW / ELW ratio has reached a record high: 1.82 AWs for every ELW. (Not that I'd reach too much into that.)
If you compare the systems to the bodies / systems ratio, you'll notice that the two lines swapped places - again. This has happened before, during DW2: as systems visited increased, B/S decreased, then as it ended and systems started falling, B/S started increasing. In fact, the only time when the gains of one didn't accompany the losses of the either were during the holiday sale gains earlier in the year: so, rather than this time being the anomaly, that one might have been it instead. (Also, on a daily breakdown, note that whenever the weekend peaks in new systems come, body scans are at their lowest.)
So, what does this actually mean? Bear in mind the general context: since the five billion fleet carrier price was revealed, and then it came to light that the real costs will be even higher, players have flocked to the diamond rush in Borann. Once the current squadron season ends, I look forward to @Ian Doncaster compiling the various leaderboards: we'll all see there how the trade one shot up. (A quick glance at the top 10 shows that despite that during these five weeks, the activity has been double than that of the previous season's eight weeks.) The most likely explanation for what we're seeing would be that explorers would rush back to join in on the credit shower as well. (Anecdotally, several people I know did that too.) It might also explain why the auto-scanned stars also dropped, although it would be best to see a graph of neutron boosts over time for this.
What we might be seeing then is the dropping out of less dedicated explorers, same as during DW2, and the more dedicated ones remaining. In comparison, the time when systems increased and bodies / systems didn't drop might have been when there was an influx of new explorers. Orrr I could have forgotten about something, and there's more at play here too. (Remember that things started going down in the middle of March, some eleven days before the fleet carriers' price reveal.) We'll see how things go then, and where the bottoms will be at.
The squadron exploration leaderboard results for Season 10 (PC) are in, and they came with a nice surprise: unlike the activity on EDSM, in the end Borann didn't seem to have much of a negative impact on squadron exploration. Seeing the EDSM trends, and how squadron trade leaderboard activity shot through the roof, I expected otherwise.
Curiously, #2 - #4 were lower than last season's, but other than the large difference between #1 and #2, competition has increased between squadrons, especially under the top ten. Both in the #11 - #100 (196 billion) and the #101 - #1000 (260 billion) ranges, the estimated total has reached the previous peak of the very first season. (Although season 2 would have been higher, if it weren't half the usual season length.) So if anything, the usually less active squadrons have been more active this season.
In the future, I might do half-time updates on squadron leaderboards as well - we'll see if there's more information to be had then, if it's worth it.
A fun little comparison: if squadrons bought and outfitted carriers for 6 billion Cr each, the top 10 squadrons would have 29 carriers from exploration, and the top 1000 would have 181. Meanwhile, over in trade, the top 10 squadrons alone got 3110 billion points, and if that's a 1:1 conversion to Cr (I think it is, but never looked into it), then that'd be 518 carriers - 17.86 times that of exploration.
It does make me wonder how many of those will leave the bubble.
Up next in a few days, the EDSM stats for May. That should have some interesting notions as well.
Curiously, #2 - #4 were lower than last season's, but other than the large difference between #1 and #2, competition has increased between squadrons, especially under the top ten. Both in the #11 - #100 (196 billion) and the #101 - #1000 (260 billion) ranges, the estimated total has reached the previous peak of the very first season. (Although season 2 would have been higher, if it weren't half the usual season length.) So if anything, the usually less active squadrons have been more active this season.
In the future, I might do half-time updates on squadron leaderboards as well - we'll see if there's more information to be had then, if it's worth it.
A fun little comparison: if squadrons bought and outfitted carriers for 6 billion Cr each, the top 10 squadrons would have 29 carriers from exploration, and the top 1000 would have 181. Meanwhile, over in trade, the top 10 squadrons alone got 3110 billion points, and if that's a 1:1 conversion to Cr (I think it is, but never looked into it), then that'd be 518 carriers - 17.86 times that of exploration.
It does make me wonder how many of those will leave the bubble.
Up next in a few days, the EDSM stats for May. That should have some interesting notions as well.
Last edited:
Here comes May's EDSM activity update. As could be expected, what with lots of people going to Borann to mine for carriers, the downward trend continued for systems visited, and seems to have bottomed out for planets and stars. For now, daily systems have lost their previous gains and gone back to the same levels as the time of stagnation, while planets and stars are still below that. Curiously enough, ELWs have hit an all-time low since the introduction of the FSS, and the ELW/AW ratio remains just below last month's record high.
What seems to be quite interesting is the drop in stars per systems, and how it might still be decreasing (just not nearly as fast as it did before, thankfully). A few weeks ago, I asked @Orvidius to make a map of stars per system after the FSS, since they are auto-scanned now. I suspected that it might be lower outside the core and outside the higher density areas. You can find the map on EDAstro here, and it seems my suspicion was correct. The difference isn't huge, but it does seem to be there. So, the large drop in stars / systems both during DW2 and in the time of Borann likely meant more people going from the more dense regions to the less dense ones. Then, this meant lots of expedition members leaving the core (either to continue onward or to leave the expedition); now, it meant Commanders going back to the bubble.
So that's an interesting statistic to watch too. We shall soon see if the introduction of fleet carriers will lead to an increase in activity, or have no effect, or maybe even a decrease. (Although I find that somewhat unlikely.) The carriers aren't concentrated in higher star density areas anyway, so watching whether Stars / Systems will move could also be interesting.
And of course, there'll also be squadron exploration leaderboards to track.
What seems to be quite interesting is the drop in stars per systems, and how it might still be decreasing (just not nearly as fast as it did before, thankfully). A few weeks ago, I asked @Orvidius to make a map of stars per system after the FSS, since they are auto-scanned now. I suspected that it might be lower outside the core and outside the higher density areas. You can find the map on EDAstro here, and it seems my suspicion was correct. The difference isn't huge, but it does seem to be there. So, the large drop in stars / systems both during DW2 and in the time of Borann likely meant more people going from the more dense regions to the less dense ones. Then, this meant lots of expedition members leaving the core (either to continue onward or to leave the expedition); now, it meant Commanders going back to the bubble.
So that's an interesting statistic to watch too. We shall soon see if the introduction of fleet carriers will lead to an increase in activity, or have no effect, or maybe even a decrease. (Although I find that somewhat unlikely.) The carriers aren't concentrated in higher star density areas anyway, so watching whether Stars / Systems will move could also be interesting.
And of course, there'll also be squadron exploration leaderboards to track.
A bit later than usual (been busy with the Inverness), but here comes the next monthly update. Early in June, we've seen the FC update released, and the decline in activity has reversed, now seeming to stabilise around previous levels when it comes to new systems - and setting new record lows in Stars/ELWs/AWs per systems. (But the previous caveats about ELW/AW counts still apply.) This is actually a pretty good indicator that exploration activity on EDSM isn't linked to Steam player counts: over there, the update brought a new record high in player numbers, beating the previous peaks set by Horizons. It will be interesting to see squadron leaderboard activity as well, although that's spread out over eight weeks. (Then there are the ongoing gold rushes in mining.)
Then there's something minor, but wholly new, and something I'll be curious to see if it stays: since the carriers were released, the daily fluctuations in new systems have gotten a bit more chaotic. They have pretty much always followed a pattern of being highest on Sundays and lowest on Wednesdays, and the other days being so gradual that they mostly showed neat lines. It seems like there's more variation between days now though, the line zig-zags more - of course, the Sun/Wed part still stays.
This doesn't seem to have any large impact, it's more of a curiosity. I'd say it's like because of people selling data more often than they usually do, thanks to carriers.
Then there's something minor, but wholly new, and something I'll be curious to see if it stays: since the carriers were released, the daily fluctuations in new systems have gotten a bit more chaotic. They have pretty much always followed a pattern of being highest on Sundays and lowest on Wednesdays, and the other days being so gradual that they mostly showed neat lines. It seems like there's more variation between days now though, the line zig-zags more - of course, the Sun/Wed part still stays.
This doesn't seem to have any large impact, it's more of a curiosity. I'd say it's like because of people selling data more often than they usually do, thanks to carriers.
Here we have the exploration squadron leaderboard results for Season 11 on the PC. On the whole, there weren't many large changes. Competition and performance was up in the top ten, the same in #11-#100, and down below it; these balanced out to give the #1-#1000 range to give almost exactly the same results as the previous season.
However, that's not to say nothing interesting happened. Up until the very last moments, Chiggy Vonrictofen's personal squadron, the Wild Cards, held a commanding lead over all the others, him having turned in all the data from his latest galactic circumnavigation... but then on the final day, our squadron, the Intergalactic Astronomical Union (IGAU) pumped in enough data to get the gold medal, overtaking just at the final minutes. The difference between #1 and #2 ended up being 290 million Cr of data, which made this the second-closest PC season: the closest (to date) was the very first season, with only 215 million Cr then.
Also, based on @Ian Doncaster 's historical data on squadron results (see the latest here, which has links to all the previous seasons'), I believe this was the first time a solo squadron placed among the top three. (In PC exploration, in any case.)
Tune in next season, when there's no carrier update launch or anything, and we'll see how squadron exploration activity will look then.
However, that's not to say nothing interesting happened. Up until the very last moments, Chiggy Vonrictofen's personal squadron, the Wild Cards, held a commanding lead over all the others, him having turned in all the data from his latest galactic circumnavigation... but then on the final day, our squadron, the Intergalactic Astronomical Union (IGAU) pumped in enough data to get the gold medal, overtaking just at the final minutes. The difference between #1 and #2 ended up being 290 million Cr of data, which made this the second-closest PC season: the closest (to date) was the very first season, with only 215 million Cr then.
Also, based on @Ian Doncaster 's historical data on squadron results (see the latest here, which has links to all the previous seasons'), I believe this was the first time a solo squadron placed among the top three. (In PC exploration, in any case.)
Tune in next season, when there's no carrier update launch or anything, and we'll see how squadron exploration activity will look then.
Last edited:
So there's July's EDSM activity update, and... there's not much to say, really. Things are more or less around the same level as last month. So it looks like fleet carriers didn't really bring any change in neither EDSM nor squadron exploration leaderboard activity. Other than the daily charts being less "clean", as players turn in and upload their data more often than before.
Meanwhile, the Steam player charts tell an entirely different story - but it should be no surprise that nerfs to mining gold rushes didn't really make people explore less (nor more).
Meanwhile, the Steam player charts tell an entirely different story - but it should be no surprise that nerfs to mining gold rushes didn't really make people explore less (nor more).
August's update was done yesterday, but I didn't get around to posting the text. So, here goes.
Well, the trend across the whole month is a remarkably clean decline, with no signs of slowing down. In the case of bodies per systems, it's barely a decline, even: so I suppose people are still as committed to scanning as before, they're just discovering less new systems, so less people are exploring. Curiously, stars / systems is also still going down, despite having held quite steady for almost a year of stagnation (2019/04 to 2020/03). It could simply mean that still more people are heading away from the core, or just that more are staying back at the bubble.
With no updates on the horizon for this year, it'll be interesting to see where activity will bottom out.
Meanwhile, there are less than two weeks to go on the squadron leaderboard, so that will be the next update. So far, outside of the top three, things don't look good: however, the final days tend to see plenty of activity anyway, so this might not be the smallest exploration season yet. In twelve days, we'll see.
Well, the trend across the whole month is a remarkably clean decline, with no signs of slowing down. In the case of bodies per systems, it's barely a decline, even: so I suppose people are still as committed to scanning as before, they're just discovering less new systems, so less people are exploring. Curiously, stars / systems is also still going down, despite having held quite steady for almost a year of stagnation (2019/04 to 2020/03). It could simply mean that still more people are heading away from the core, or just that more are staying back at the bubble.
With no updates on the horizon for this year, it'll be interesting to see where activity will bottom out.
Meanwhile, there are less than two weeks to go on the squadron leaderboard, so that will be the next update. So far, outside of the top three, things don't look good: however, the final days tend to see plenty of activity anyway, so this might not be the smallest exploration season yet. In twelve days, we'll see.
Here are the exploration PC squadron leaderboard results for season 12. Like the EDSM activity, this season marked a significant decline down from the previous one, making it a weak season, but the weakest yet. Well, except in squadrons #5-#10, which set a negative record (with #4 almost having done that too), but curiously, things not only looked better in the top four, but also not as bad under #10. Probably just a bump on the road, so to speak.
In any case, season 13's beginning will likely mark the return of CGs, so we'll see if those will have any effect too. Currently, EDSM activity via systems seems to be headed to a negative record, so in two weeks, we'll see if the current trend reverses or not.
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised though if fewer people are interested in exploration now simply because they know Odyssey is coming with new planets to explore, and would rather not head out until then.
In any case, season 13's beginning will likely mark the return of CGs, so we'll see if those will have any effect too. Currently, EDSM activity via systems seems to be headed to a negative record, so in two weeks, we'll see if the current trend reverses or not.
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised though if fewer people are interested in exploration now simply because they know Odyssey is coming with new planets to explore, and would rather not head out until then.
I don't know if you are also tracking the CQC leaderboards to get an overall idea of activity in the game but it seems to be that at least on Playstation cheating seems to be rampant for the time being. So that might not be a good measure for player activity … or it might not matter since there aren't many players in CQC anyway, and probably even significantly fewer on Playstation.
My own experience of tracking leaderboards is that while people might well cheat to try to get a trophy, they probably won't cheat to get position 100 or 1000, and the majority of the total volume of a general purpose leaderboard like Exploration is well outside the top 10, so for comparability it doesn't matter that much.
@schlowi123 : nope, I'm only tracking PC exploration squadron leaderboard statistics. (PC only because I don't have the data for consoles.) You can check the other leaderboards here, @Ian Doncaster does them every season. The main difference is that I do linear regression in the #10-#100 and the #100-#1000 ranges, while he works with a rough (but quick) approximation that "the top 10 squadrons will have very roughly as many points as the top 100 squadrons except the top 10, who will have very roughly as many points as the top 1000 squadrons without the top 100". (I do linear because the difference between that and polynomial turned out to be remarkably small, and I can easily chop linear regression into a spreadsheet.) This way yields more accurate results, but I don't think I'd spend the time required to do it on all seven either.
For now, I've seen no evidence that any squadron gained a number of points that they couldn't have done so with entirely fair ways.
Exactly. There also don't tend to be huge differences in the top either, other than on a few occasions. Like when in Season 7, the gold trophy had 43 billion, while silver was 11 billion. If there were a way to give a huge boost to exploration rank progression, either legitimately or via cheating, sooner or later it would become public knowledge, and we'd know.
For now, I've seen no evidence that any squadron gained a number of points that they couldn't have done so with entirely fair ways.
Not quite - I take the positions 1-10, 10-100, 100-1000 as separate ranges, linearly average between samples within each range to get totals for those ranges, and then use that and the total number of squadrons to estimate the total.
The 1-10, 10-100 and 100-1000 ranges do generally tend to have about the same totals, but I use that more for validating that there hasn't been an unusual change to the distributions, than for direct estimation.
Ah, righto. The part I quoted was from your first season's post, so I missed that things have changed since.
That depends on what definition you'd use as "generally" and "roughly". I made a comparison chart just now, of how the top 10 relates to the calculated #10 - #100 and #100 - #1000:
In my opinion, we can say that #100 - #1000 is generally around 75% of #10 - #100. But outside the anomalous Season 2, the others moved around considerably. Of course, on a larger scale, you could easily say that they're all approximated to 100% for the sake of simplicity; after all, it's not like any of them ever dipped to 10% or below. (The lowest value there on season 8 was 29%.)
Of course, come Odyssey things might change significantly, and the downward trends obliterated (for a season or two, at the very least) - it'll also likely depend on whether there'll be an exobiology leaderboard to go with the new rank, or if that will be rolled into the exploration leaderboard instead. (I'm hoping there won't, but on the other hand, it would be rather odd to have progression from two ranks go into one leaderboard category.)
Last edited:
"About the same on a log scale" is what I'm going forThat depends on what definition you'd use as "generally" and "roughly". I made a comparison chart just now, of how the top 10 relates to the calculated #10 - #100 and #100 - #1000:
And yes, anomalous season 2 aside, 1-10 < 10-100 < 100-1000 is also what I estimate.
Here comes September then. The negative tendency has for the most part continued, but also slowed down a bit: we're back to the levels of what I call the stagnation era, from after DW2 until the end of 2019 holiday sales. The difference is that the Steam player charts are significantly higher this time around. Personally, I'd expect things to bottom out in a month or maybe two, just in time for the holiday sales at the end of the year.
An interesting thing to note is that there was one higher spike than usual, on the Sunday before the squadron leaderboard season ended. Normally, you might think that uploads would spike on the exact day it ends, but apparently, the regular Sunday spikes are more influential.
An interesting thing to note is that there was one higher spike than usual, on the Sunday before the squadron leaderboard season ended. Normally, you might think that uploads would spike on the exact day it ends, but apparently, the regular Sunday spikes are more influential.
Time for October. Looks like the decline has bottomed out, and activity has stabilised at the levels of the old stagnation. Horizons was folded into the main game on Oct. 27, and that doesn't seem to have changed anything, neither here nor on the Steam charts. The Halloween event on Oct. 29, which was teased roughly a week before, doesn't seem to have had any significant effect here either - maybe if you're looking with a magnifying glass, mostly as stars per systems. We'll see some time later, I guess.
For now, the next squadron leaderboard season isn't long now, so next update's coming then.
For now, the next squadron leaderboard season isn't long now, so next update's coming then.
Time for PC exploration squadron leaderboard Season 13! It's interesting in that if not for #1, it would have been almost a historically low season. The gold trophy went to Canonn, who back at the start of September started a public tour of all the current Codex entries, and amassed 48.3 billion points. (The current all-time high is 50.2 billion by the Winged Hussars during Season 6.) Below them, competition was remarkably low... however, I think there are two factors at play here.
One is that squadrons might have simply held back data from this season, knowing full well that Canonn is going to take the top spot anyway. I do know that here in IGAU, we wanted a third place this season, to complete our trophy set, and when a member sold 1.5 billion Cr in data despite repeated announcements not to sell any, we went to #2 instead... and stayed there for something like two weeks, during which there was next to no movement in the top ten. Only in the very last hours was there any, with Hijos del Caos jumping up and thankfully putting us in third place. So, other squadrons might have similary saved their data for the next season - we'll see.
The other might simply be that with not just CGs, but also actual storyline(s) coming back to Elite, some more people simply stopped exploring and flocked back to the bubble. This might be mostly due to the Halloween mystery event though. (I mean, I don't think that hauling or the lop-sided combat CGs would draw back many explorers.) Increases in traffic inside the bubble and outside of it might well indicate this, but even if that's true, it's not like a mass exodus. As I mentioned before, on the new system uploads to EDSM, it didn't even really show up, neither as a decrease nor as an increase.
One is that squadrons might have simply held back data from this season, knowing full well that Canonn is going to take the top spot anyway. I do know that here in IGAU, we wanted a third place this season, to complete our trophy set, and when a member sold 1.5 billion Cr in data despite repeated announcements not to sell any, we went to #2 instead... and stayed there for something like two weeks, during which there was next to no movement in the top ten. Only in the very last hours was there any, with Hijos del Caos jumping up and thankfully putting us in third place. So, other squadrons might have similary saved their data for the next season - we'll see.
The other might simply be that with not just CGs, but also actual storyline(s) coming back to Elite, some more people simply stopped exploring and flocked back to the bubble. This might be mostly due to the Halloween mystery event though. (I mean, I don't think that hauling or the lop-sided combat CGs would draw back many explorers.) Increases in traffic inside the bubble and outside of it might well indicate this, but even if that's true, it's not like a mass exodus. As I mentioned before, on the new system uploads to EDSM, it didn't even really show up, neither as a decrease nor as an increase.
So, @Obsidian Ant claims that Frontier told him a new figure of how many systems have been discovered: 0.04827645775%. (That's one highly-specific percentage.)
Assuming that's true, then let's see what that would mean: 25.1 million new systems were discovered since the last official count, 333 days ago. During this time, 11.6 million new systems were uploaded to EDSM (that's with the probably-revisited systems subtracted: with those included, it would be 13.6 instead), so while the pace of discovery and EDSM uploads have both decreased, the ratio remained between EDSM and total remained the same. Last time (see here), it was 45.66%, and this time, it's 46.21%. Which is just as impressive as it was before.
After all, usually it's around a tenth - a fifth of all players who use such third-party stuff, and going by the very rough estimates we'd have for players here, that could likely hold true as well. Which would also mean that the players who upload to EDSM/EDDN explore much more than those who don't.
Assuming that's true, then let's see what that would mean: 25.1 million new systems were discovered since the last official count, 333 days ago. During this time, 11.6 million new systems were uploaded to EDSM (that's with the probably-revisited systems subtracted: with those included, it would be 13.6 instead), so while the pace of discovery and EDSM uploads have both decreased, the ratio remained between EDSM and total remained the same. Last time (see here), it was 45.66%, and this time, it's 46.21%. Which is just as impressive as it was before.
After all, usually it's around a tenth - a fifth of all players who use such third-party stuff, and going by the very rough estimates we'd have for players here, that could likely hold true as well. Which would also mean that the players who upload to EDSM/EDDN explore much more than those who don't.