Terms & Conditions

1. Agreement to Terms

By accessing or using Elite Squadrons ("the Platform") at elitesquadrons.com, including its websites, authenticated API endpoints, telemetry ingest endpoints, and any companion plugins or integrations used to interact with the Platform, you agree to be bound by these Terms & Conditions. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform. The Platform is operated by Vintenxe, an individual hobbyist based in Nevada, USA.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years of age to use the Platform. By using the Platform, you represent that you meet this age requirement. If you are under 18, you represent that you have the permission of a parent or legal guardian. The Platform is not intended for and does not knowingly allow use by anyone under the age of 13.

3. Account & Access

Access to the Platform requires authentication via Discord. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your Discord account and any credentials used with the Platform. You may not share your session, transfer your account, or allow others to access the Platform through your account. Optionally, you may link your Frontier Developments account, which is subject to Frontier's own terms of service.

You may belong to exactly one squadron at a time on the Platform. Joining a new squadron requires leaving your current one. Your membership history (join dates, departures, and reasons) is retained for moderation and audit purposes.

Members may generate per-device API tokens for use with compatible telemetry plugins (such as EDMC). These tokens are your responsibility to keep secure, must not be shared, and may be revoked at any time through the Platform or by the operator.

4. Platform Features & Services

The Platform provides tools and services for managing Elite Dangerous squadrons, including:

4.1 Squadron Management

Member directories, configurable rank hierarchies with permissions, member status tracking, squadron settings, and branding configuration.

4.2 Background Simulation (BGS) Tracking

Faction influence monitoring, star system tracking, data ingestion from EDDN, EDSM, Spansh, the Frontier Companion API, and squadron telemetry. Conflict detection with automatic operation generation.

4.3 Operations

Operation creation, signup, proof submission, and after-action reports. Operations may be manually created or automatically generated from BGS conflict detection.

4.4 Fleet Carriers

Carrier registration, jump scheduling, commodity tracking, service status, and carrier assignment to operations and colonization projects.

4.5 Colonization Projects

Project lifecycle management with bill-of-materials tracking, delivery logging, in-transit tracking, carrier allocation, and colonization notes.

4.6 Diplomacy

Diplomatic pacts with other squadrons or in-game factions, stance management, diplomatic actions, inter-squadron messaging, and cross-squadron pact linking.

4.7 Lore Archives

Squadron lore entries with draft/publish workflow, authorship attribution, tagging, and optional public visibility.

4.8 Recruitment

Application submission and review workflow, including approve/decline outcomes.

4.9 Leaderboards & Awards

Awards across categories and tiers, and activity leaderboards for squadron engagement.

4.10 Calendar, Notifications & Webhooks

Aggregated event calendars, in-app notifications with per-category preferences, and Discord webhook notifications for squadron events, configured by squadron administrators.

4.11 Telemetry & API

Authenticated API endpoints and telemetry ingest endpoints for authorized Platform use. Telemetry access requires per-device bearer tokens issued to individual members.

5. Data Accuracy & Gameplay Reliance

The Platform aggregates and presents information about Elite Dangerous, including background simulation (BGS) data, factions, star systems, stations, fleet carriers, markets, outfitting, shipyards, colonization projects, operations, and related data. This information is provided as a convenience and may be delayed, incomplete, inaccurate, stale, duplicated, or unavailable at any time.

You are solely responsible for verifying any in-game decision before acting on it, including but not limited to navigation, trade, mining, BGS work, conflict participation, faction support, carrier movement, colonization deliveries, and diplomatic actions.

We make no guarantee of BGS outcomes, conflict states, market availability, fleet carrier movement, construction progress, or any in-game progress or result. We are not responsible for any loss of in-game assets, credits, ranks, materials, reputation, or progress arising from your use of the Platform.

6. Donations

The Platform is free to use and supported by voluntary donations. Donations are processed externally through Ko-fi (ko-fi.com/elitesquadrons), a third-party service with its own terms of service and privacy policy. The Platform does not process payments directly.

All donations are voluntary and non-refundable. No goods or services are provided in exchange for donations, and donations do not entitle you to any special privileges, features, priority support, or guarantees regarding the Platform's availability or continued operation.

Members may submit in-app donation proofs (amounts and screenshots) for their squadron's records. Donation proof review is for squadron transparency and record-keeping only and does not constitute confirmation by Vintenxe of any payment, tax status, or other financial arrangement.

7. Acceptable Use

When using the Platform, you agree to:

• Behave respectfully toward other squadron members and refrain from harassment, discrimination, threats, or abusive conduct
• Not exploit bugs, glitches, or vulnerabilities in the Platform, and report any you discover to the operator
• Not use cheats, exploits, or third-party tools that violate the rules of Elite Dangerous or the Platform
• Not attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Platform, its servers, its data, other users' accounts, or any data outside the scope of your permitted user or squadron access
• Not upload malicious files, spam, or content that is illegal, offensive, or violates the rights of others
• Not submit fraudulent telemetry data, falsified operation proofs, or fabricated donation records
• Not scrape, enumerate, overload, or otherwise interfere with the Platform, its APIs, or its telemetry endpoints
• Not bypass, disable, or attempt to circumvent rate limits, access controls, authentication, or moderation systems
• Not abuse the diplomacy system to send harassing, threatening, or unlawful messages
• Not impersonate other commanders, squadrons, or factions
• Comply with content guidelines when writing lore entries, diplomatic messages, colonization notes, and other user-generated content
• Comply with all applicable laws and the rules set by squadron leadership

8. User-Generated Content

You retain ownership of content you create or upload to the Platform, including operation proof screenshots, lore entries, after-action reports, diplomatic messages and actions, colonization notes, recruitment application text, donation proof screenshots, and any other textual or image content you submit ("Your Content").

You grant Vintenxe and the squadron to which the content is submitted a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, display, reproduce, format, moderate, and distribute Your Content only as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, moderate, promote, and provide the Platform and squadron features. This includes displaying Your Content to other members, sending it to Discord channels or webhooks configured by squadron administrators, including it in after-action reports, and using it for moderation or administrative review.

This license ends when you delete the relevant content, except to the extent content has already been published, shared, copied, or distributed, and except as needed to retain it in encrypted backups, moderation or audit records, or for legal, safety, or security reasons.

You represent and warrant that you have the rights necessary to upload Your Content and that Your Content does not infringe the rights of any third party or violate any applicable law.

9. Content Moderation & Removal

Vintenxe may, at its sole discretion and without prior notice, remove, hide, restrict, preserve, or disclose content on the Platform when reasonably necessary to enforce these Terms, comply with applicable law, respond to legal process, protect the rights, property, or safety of Vintenxe, users, or others, prevent abuse, harassment, fraud, or security incidents, or otherwise preserve the integrity of the Platform. Vintenxe is under no obligation to monitor user content but may do so.

10. Copyright & Infringement Claims

You must only upload content that you have the necessary rights or permissions to use. Do not upload copyrighted material, trademarks, or other protected content unless you own it, have permission, your use is permitted by law, or your use is permitted by the applicable game, platform, or fan-content policies.

If you believe content on the Platform infringes your copyright or other rights, please send a notice to contact@vintenxe.com describing the work claimed to be infringed, the location of the allegedly infringing content on the Platform, your contact information, and a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized. Vintenxe may remove or disable access to allegedly infringing content and may terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

The Platform does not currently claim formal safe-harbor status under any specific statutory regime, including the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

11. Squadron Governance

Each squadron on the Platform is self-governed by its owner and leadership (officers, high command, and administrators). Squadron leadership may set and enforce their own rules, manage ranks and permissions, issue warnings, moderate their members, control recruitment, and configure visibility and integrations for their squadron.

Squadron owners, admins, and officers may remove, demote, suspend, or ban members from their squadron at their discretion, subject to these Terms and applicable law. Squadron leadership cannot terminate your overall access to the Platform; only Vintenxe can do that (see Section 12).

The Platform provides the tools; Vintenxe does not mediate intra-squadron disputes unless they involve a violation of these Terms or applicable law. Squadron owners may transfer ownership and configure visibility settings for their squadron.

12. Suspension & Termination of Platform Access

Vintenxe may suspend or terminate your access to the Platform, in whole or in part, at its discretion, including in the following circumstances:

• Rule violations: Breach of these Terms or applicable law
• Abuse or security risk: Conduct that endangers the Platform, its users, or third parties
• Inactivity: Long-term inactive accounts may be archived or removed
• Operational necessity: The Platform may be modified, suspended, or discontinued in whole or in part at any time

Squadron bans may persist at the user level even if individual member records are deleted. Banned users cannot rejoin the squadron unless the ban is lifted by squadron leadership.

Upon termination of access, some data (including membership history, moderation records, audit logs, and backups) may be retained as described in the Privacy Policy. You may request deletion of your personal data by emailing contact@vintenxe.com.

13. Third-Party Services & Disclaimer

Elite Squadrons is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with Frontier Developments plc or the game Elite Dangerous. "Elite Dangerous" and related trademarks are the property of Frontier Developments plc. The Platform is a fan-made tool built by and for players of Elite Dangerous. Use of the Frontier Companion API is subject to Frontier's own terms of service.

The Platform integrates with Discordfor authentication, webhook notifications, and server membership verification. Your use of Discord is subject to Discord's own terms of service.

Voluntary donations are processed through Ko-fi. Ko-fi has its own terms of service and privacy policy. The Platform does not process payments directly.

The Platform consumes public data from EDDN, EDSM, and Spansh, which are community-maintained Elite Dangerous data services operated independently of this Platform.

14. API & Telemetry Usage

The Platform exposes authenticated API endpoints and telemetry ingest endpoints for authorized Platform use. Telemetry access requires per-device bearer tokens issued to individual members. Tokens may be revoked at any time, by you or by the operator.

You agree not to:

• Scrape, enumerate, or bulk-export data beyond what the user interface or documented endpoints permit
• Access or attempt to access data outside the scope of your permitted user or squadron access
• Flood, overload, conduct denial-of-service attacks against, or otherwise interfere with the Platform or its APIs
• Bypass or circumvent rate limits, authentication, access controls, or moderation systems
• Share, distribute, resell, or sublicense your API or telemetry tokens
• Perform vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, or other security testing without prior written authorization from Vintenxe

Exceeding rate limits or violating these rules may result in temporary blocking, token revocation, suspension, or termination of Platform access.

15. Security Reporting

If you believe you have discovered a security vulnerability in the Platform, please report it to contact@vintenxe.com with enough detail to reproduce the issue. We appreciate good-faith reports.

Submitting a vulnerability report does not authorize you to access, modify, delete, exfiltrate, or disclose data or systems, to degrade service availability, or to test against other users' accounts or data. Any testing must be limited to your own account and must not violate these Terms or applicable law.

16. Service Availability

The Platform is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, to the maximum extent permitted by law. Vintenxe makes no guarantees regarding uptime, availability, accuracy, or uninterrupted service. The Platform is a hobby project and may experience downtime for maintenance, updates, or unforeseen issues, and may be modified, suspended, or discontinued at any time. We will make reasonable efforts to keep the Platform running but accept no liability for outages, errors, data loss, or in-game impact.

17. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event shall Vintenxe be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, in-game progress, in-game assets, or other intangible losses arising out of or relating to your use of, or inability to use, the Platform, even if Vintenxe has been advised of the possibility of such damages. The Platform is provided free of charge, and your use of it is at your own risk. To the extent any liability cannot be excluded under applicable law, Vintenxe's aggregate liability shall be limited to the greater of (a) the amount, if any, that you have voluntarily donated to the Platform in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) US$50.

18. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Vintenxe from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of the Platform, your violation of these Terms, your user-generated content, or your violation of any third-party right or applicable law. This obligation shall survive termination of your account and these Terms.

19. Dispute Resolution

Before initiating any formal dispute, you agree to first contact Vintenxe at contact@vintenxe.com and attempt to resolve the dispute informally for at least 30 days.

If informal resolution fails, any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of the Platform shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Nevada, USA, except that either party may bring an individual action in small claims court in Nevada for disputes within the court's jurisdictional limits. You and Vintenxe consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

20. Intellectual Property

The Platform's code, design, and branding (excluding user-generated content and third-party trademarks) are the property of Vintenxe. You may not copy, modify, distribute, or reverse-engineer the Platform without prior written permission, except to the extent such restriction is prohibited by applicable law.

21. Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Nevada and the United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles. Nothing in these Terms limits any non-waivable consumer rights you may have under the mandatory law of your country of residence.

22. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated "Last updated" date. Continued use of the Platform after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

23. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

24. Contact

For questions about these Terms, contact contact@vintenxe.com.