So what's the best way of gaining merits?

Urgh. All I want to do is fly a Small sized ship and be effective at powerplay, not engage in zero brain power a-b hauling :D

Is it too much to ask?
Merits can be earned uploading malware at dataports, which requires at same time killing some civvies etc... those are for uMMing so have to be done in enemy territory.

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Urgh. All I want to do is fly a Small sized ship and be effective at powerplay, not engage in zero brain power a-b hauling :D

Is it too much to ask?
Well if they would mark Rare items loaded onto carriers as not viable for merits, then there would be a point to flying your medium ship around collecting various rares again.

I'm seriously cheesed off at this method. FDEV threw a fit because some commanders hit level 100 (or higher) instantly by turning in exploration data. Yet they have no problem with a player hitting level 118 in the first week by loading his carrier full of rares, jumping to the target system, and then unloading them all. Yeah, that's fun game play. It also screws everyone else out of any chance of getting the high ranks in the weekly competition (which does have a payout).

But hey, screw it... I'm going to now do the same dang thing until they fix it. Every other method of gaining merits is a tiny trickle.
Merits can be earned uploading malware at dataports, which requires at same time killing some civvies etc... those are for uMMing so have to be done in enemy territory.

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It is 65 merits per upload, which takes 1 minute each. This doesn't factor in the time to get to the settlement, clear/avoid inhabitants, and find the dataports. You're also limited to doing this once per dataport (which makes sense). However, that also means some settlements will be very good for this (tourism sites have a lot of dataports) and others won't.

I've only done the one for undermining territories (since my weekly assignment requires me to download power data from these same areas). I haven't done the one that is for your own systems yet.
 
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Hacking billboards is a lot of fun.. But degrades REP very fast!
I have all PP modules. For me they are not even a reason to grind. They are not that good.

I am saving up on popcorn and looking forward to the first posts complaining about too aggressive PP NPCs harassing players
 
Hacking billboards is a lot of fun.. But degrades REP very fast!
I have all PP modules. For me they are not even a reason to grind. They are not that good.

I am saving up on popcorn and looking forward to the first posts complaining about too aggressive PP NPCs harassing players
I'm more interested in my powers other perks: 100% reduced repair, rearm, and refuel costs; 100% increase to exploration payouts; 50% increased to trade. Of course those don't fully kick in until level 100. I'm already getting 30% extra on exploration data (close to 40%).
 
I am saving up on popcorn and looking forward to the first posts complaining about too aggressive PP NPCs harassing players
You already missed it, I regret to inform you.

It got lobotomised before it even came out to the general public, because Twitch streamers were unhappy with being attacked while pledged.
 
My latest method of earning merits is to run an AFK cutter in a low res. Last outing pulled in ~9000 merits. I've been stacking missions for the money, mats, and merits but since I no longer need money or mats I think I'll just skip the missions, load up a few gold and park in a low res. This activity also generates hundreds of escape pods which I gather up at the end of the run - since I only have space for 128 ( I can't fit a size 8 cargo bay due to mass restrictions) I'm losing several thousand merits there.

Not having to deal with missions means I can now go to any system having a low res. I have 3 accounts with AFK cutters so I could be a real force here and there. I'm assuming that merits are assigned on kill so getting a rebuy screen would only affect credits and not merits.

I did the rares method until supply crashed and I prefer this.
 
There is a special place in hell for AFK Farmers, and personally I think Frontier should nerf that into the ground. Have multiple wings of ATR with station guns turn up after a certain period of no activity or something.

I know it's like the race between the hare and the tortoise, as people will come up with bots that simulate activity and such, but that's the point where we really get into cheating territory.
 
I'm just experimenting like a lot of other people as this is all new to me. I never cared much for PP1.0 and was only interested in prismatics and special weapons. For PP2.0 merits are the thing I need to progress so how I get them is not as important as the quantity - it is a long ways to level 100. Yesterday's run only netted ~7000 merits so I'm looking around for other methods of merit gathering. That I'm using my main account for this is a problem because it does prevent me from doing other things.
 
I think, as personal rank point, escape pods from Visitors Beacon is best of best source. And at certain system it can be also best reinforcement or undermining point. (especially AD or Kaine)

But at early stage of Power ranks, before gaining bonus perk, rare goods might be better.
 
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I've doing repower missions for about 450 a pop + whatever I get from downloads.
Tried some thing over the weekend. PP cz - they were all empty so couldn't get any data out of that.
I grabbed some of those malware things but couldn't find any place to use them. Some are for acquisition and some for fortification (I think the latter was for fortification). Either way, no data pads had an option to upload so I have to be totally misunderstanding how those work.
Went back to repower as I wanted to make at least some progress.

Did regular bounty hunting, too. Hardly makes anything in merits.
 
I've doing repower missions for about 450 a pop + whatever I get from downloads.
Tried some thing over the weekend. PP cz - they were all empty so couldn't get any data out of that.
I grabbed some of those malware things but couldn't find any place to use them. Some are for acquisition and some for fortification (I think the latter was for fortification). Either way, no data pads had an option to upload so I have to be totally misunderstanding how those work.
Went back to repower as I wanted to make at least some progress.

Did regular bounty hunting, too. Hardly makes anything in merits.
The malwares are for acquisition and undermining. I'm not sure when "acquisition" stops being an option (I guess the minute the system reaches exploited status). There isn't anything (labeled) for fortification. I've extensively used the ones for undermining since I was tasked with downloading data from a system to undermine. So download their power data, upload malware and then move on to next data port.

I haven't seen anything come close to the rate of trading rares. I'm not sure if Fleet Carriers are still a viable option since:
  1. So many carrier owners are now trying to do this a lot of the systems are full
  2. Addendum to #1, Carrier jump times are often 1 hour plus.
  3. Some systems become depleted of rares quickly, making deploying the carrier risky.
Instead, I've just continued to do a circuit in my Type 8 - adjusting the route with certain rares dry up - and usually net 6800 merits per round trip (Takes 30 to 45 minutes - I'm not pushing myself for speed). It's moderately entertaining (I can catch up on my Netflix shows on my iPad while running the circuit). Without nerfing this, I wish there were more fun alternatives that gave as much merits, if not more.

Oddly, if I decide to pick up 100 undermining commodities (Sirius Contracts, I think) at the beginning of my run (which requires a slight detour), I get a whopping 97 merits for my trouble! Does that seem right to anyone? PP specific materials, which require a wait, generate only a tiny reward. Weird.

I'm not going to mess with settlements (downloading data/uploading malware) unless I have to do so. The rewards don't outweigh the time spent trying to achieve them - and they also hammer my reputation with that local faction. That doesn't even factor in the massive notorious rating I get from having to clear the settlement... which can cause problems when I go back to trading, as I can't clear fines (not bounties) from accidents until the notorious rating goes away.

They really need to increase the merits for other activities AND severely reduce the notoriety you receive when dealing with Odyssey settlements. Yes, in real life, it makes sense for the mass murder. In the ED universe, where law enforcement blows you up for taking up space in the docking bays, it doesn't. On foot encounters bring a whole lot of headaches that you don't have in space (no automatic wanted scan when scanning a target, needing to stealth, numerous targets that all go hostile, etc.). And they wander why everyone shifted to hammering anarchy settlements after they introduced notoriety to Odyssey gameplay... sigh
 
They really need to increase the merits for other activities AND severely reduce the notoriety you receive when dealing with Odyssey settlements.

I liked one idea I saw somewhere, for Stronghold carriers to have an interstellar factor who ignored notoriety, maybe above a certain rank level. This would be like a "license to kill" for trusted agents and serve to represent the clout that the Power wields in the Galaxy.
 
I've found I only get the notoriety from ground fights if I don't notice one or two of the scavengers are unmarked. If I let them shoot first, all is well again. Can't speak for space acquired notoriety.
 
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