Has merit-mining been nerfed?

[geoffrey.hdt]

Hi commanders,

It had been a long time since I last merit-mined for PowerPlay, and decided to give it another go.
I recall that months ago I used to get 260 merits per ton of Platinum.
Today, at a reinforcement system (Omega-1 Aquarii), I received only 50 merits, despite a profit of 228,901 CR.

Osmium was no better.

Has there been a major nerf since the last server update?

Also, when I checked, the system had not made it to the next state (fortified > stronghold), so there should not have been the merit penalty yet:

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

It is not as easy as "you get X merits per ton of Y". Merits seemed to be tied to profit, and before some changes were introduced, my personal statistics indicated a merit rate of 0.75 merits per 1000 Cr profit, up to a certain, but variable, threshold where you wouldn't get any more merits for additional deliveries.

Also, your system is heavily fortified, so you're probably hit with the -35% fortification penalty.

 

[Martind Forlon]

Merits gain is lowered, but system control points gained remains the same. Atm there is quite huge chaos between displayed (personal merits) and system CP.

Important annaoucements for read:

• https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-trailblazers-update-3-now-live.636973/
• https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/trailblazers-update-3-4.638963/ (this are the latest, rather unwelcome changes)
• numbers informative thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/how-much-decay.639222/
• merits wise (atm) seems are the best activities those which are supporting systems acquisition or system which was in last 24hours heavily undermined (be careful that undermining may be in highly reinforced system due newly implemented mechanism "decay" which is applied at Thursday weekly tick)
• for any normal/slow/regular reinforcement makes no sense go higher as 25%, this is when decay will triger, which will damage players effort. To counter this there is only one viable way: group concentrated effort.
• @geoffrey.hdt ... your image for that system is prime example of avoiding decay loses = push system one lvl higher fast (in 1-2 weeks ideally)

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

[...]

• @geoffrey.hdt ... your image for that system is prime example of avoiding decay loses = push system one lvl higher fast (in 1-2 weeks ideally)

Yup, we planned to make it to stronghold last cycle, but had to switch to other priorities before we could complete it. Had to eat the decay this cycle.