After playing around a bit with doing some combat in conflict zones, I've found some trouble with the balance of effort/reward with mercenary work vs bounty hunting.
Bounty hunting seems greatly superior to mercenary work in terms of mission payout and bonds/bounties.
Combat bonds rarely give much of a higher payout on ships destroyed, and mercenary missions both require a higher killcount to complete, and don't give as much money per kill. Some missions will require upward of 50 kills within a day in order to complete the mission.
This is on top of the fact that mercenary work is more difficult- ships in combat zones are usually much tougher than in bounty hunting locations, even with the same ship model, and the same npc combat rating.
It seemed to me that mercenary work was meant to be the step up from bounty hunting, where the combat was more demanding, but ultimately the rewards were better. Unfortunately the rewards actually seem to generally be less than bounty hunting overall.
Bounty hunting seems greatly superior to mercenary work in terms of mission payout and bonds/bounties.
Combat bonds rarely give much of a higher payout on ships destroyed, and mercenary missions both require a higher killcount to complete, and don't give as much money per kill. Some missions will require upward of 50 kills within a day in order to complete the mission.
This is on top of the fact that mercenary work is more difficult- ships in combat zones are usually much tougher than in bounty hunting locations, even with the same ship model, and the same npc combat rating.
It seemed to me that mercenary work was meant to be the step up from bounty hunting, where the combat was more demanding, but ultimately the rewards were better. Unfortunately the rewards actually seem to generally be less than bounty hunting overall.
