I actually did take a 10 years break, things haven't really improved.
Power Play 2.0 Merits Progression Feedback
- Thread starter Revelation_jeff
- Start date
Ball park estimate, how many merits would 100mil of exobiology credits get you?
Fellow Mahon backer here - o7
I spent an afternoon at the weekend and three evenings playing - maybe 15 - 20 hours in total - which is way more than I would usually play in a week. Initially did the “todo list” and from that ascertained that running Brandy from Lave to the furthest Aquisition system I could find gave the best progress. So I stuck with that - primarily just to see what progress could actually be made.
I hit around 38,000 merits which, personally, I thought was pretty good. But that rate is not sustainable for me: I simply can’t get that much time to play every week and that activity - whilst fine once in a while - would drive me insane if it was all I was doing week-in, week-out.
Yet, even at that rate it would 8 cycles to get to the first module and probably 12+ before I get to the first one I actually want!
I gave the secret technique on another post, here it is:
You want to get to rank 100 before the end of week ? With a squadron it's pretty easy, you can even do it while sleeping. Make everyone engineer a good T10 with high range pulse laser, then take everyone in the same private group, go to an enemy stronghold you can undermine and park there, then all you need is one guy firing at enemy ships while flying between the T10 for everyone to get 10k merits an hour, maybe more.
the more you're are, the better result of course.
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Since powerplay is supposed to be all about politics, I guess it should be zero, unless those bacteria were useful to spread bat flu or monkeypox among the crew of hostile stations and stronghold carriers.
You mean, ship choice and outfitting have....have.....consequences? In Elite?
You mad bro?
I believe exp/bio data is suspended from earning merits atm, but on the test server the data I have seen says that you get 1 merit per 2.5m creidts of data, so 40 credits.
it is not. It's been reactivated as of last night.
Source: https://x.com/EliteDangerous/status/1854584742496157717
Yes I am
I wonder about that.... I tried bunch of CZ, but not single of them yielded me more than 400-500 merits.... and from what I could notice, killing enemy CZ ship, is not really diffrent than killing wanted ships in RES, apart of CZ ships being bit more stronger on average, than those found in RES.... wich is no more than 1000-1500 merits per hour.
Given amount of merits gained in CZ per kill, getting 4000 merits as you claim, would require atleast killing every present enemy ships by cmdr alone(without letting friendly npcs killing anyone), not to mention, that progress bar of said CZ will be soon as complete after killing bunch of ships, surely way ealier than 4000.
Can you back up your claim with pics or vid? Otherwise I say, what you claim is simply not true, since no one other than you, had did make such claim.... wich sounds too good to be true, if I would be honest with ya.
Also, if that would be true that single CZ would yield 4k merits, then every youtuber and thier dog who "advice" on powerplay would surely mention that is good way to earn merits, but I have yet to see anyone mention about that...
Hello CMDR, I would never lie about figures in a game 
I did a power cz in my corvette, medium intensity. It took me about an hour, seemed to drag for ages compared to normal, maybe the npcs on my side weren't doing enough? At the time I was with Aisling, who doesn't prioritise combat, and was getting around 65 merits per kill. I didn't write anything down at the start as I was just playing around, but I was up by around 3700-4000 by the end of it. I don't record my gameplay so can't prove it. I am a mentor in a squadron that teaches new players, so my ethos is totally against what you're implying. I've been experimenting with so many activities, and this was one of the most profitable for me.
I normally do high intensity czs, but thought I would try it out on a medium intensity, and was surprised about how long it took for the progress bar to complete. This is what happened, I'll happily try it again and come back to you with screenshots (although I have changed power to Yuri Grom now). I have changed powers 5 times already to gather information for our squadron to reach our new players. I don't appreciate being accused of lying at all. I've sacrificed my 45000 merit rank with Aisling in the name of testing things for my squad, and will happily do it again. I am here to help others, not try to posture about how great my way of playing is!
I did a power cz in my corvette, medium intensity. It took me about an hour, seemed to drag for ages compared to normal, maybe the npcs on my side weren't doing enough? At the time I was with Aisling, who doesn't prioritise combat, and was getting around 65 merits per kill. I didn't write anything down at the start as I was just playing around, but I was up by around 3700-4000 by the end of it. I don't record my gameplay so can't prove it. I am a mentor in a squadron that teaches new players, so my ethos is totally against what you're implying. I've been experimenting with so many activities, and this was one of the most profitable for me.I normally do high intensity czs, but thought I would try it out on a medium intensity, and was surprised about how long it took for the progress bar to complete. This is what happened, I'll happily try it again and come back to you with screenshots (although I have changed power to Yuri Grom now). I have changed powers 5 times already to gather information for our squadron to reach our new players. I don't appreciate being accused of lying at all. I've sacrificed my 45000 merit rank with Aisling in the name of testing things for my squad, and will happily do it again. I am here to help others, not try to posture about how great my way of playing is!
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Just looked through my logs on ED Discovery and couldn't find the way to show merits earnt. It did show me that the CZ went on for around 1 and a half hours (much longer than normal, as I said before!) I will do another CZ for Yuri soon to compare, but the figures may be different, still trying to work it all out.. I am in the top 1600 players on Inara, on my way to Elite 2 in combat, with 13000 combat bonds in Inara with a fleet of 56 ships, all fully engineered, with combat as my main focus, so maybe that explains the difference in merits earnt. Also, I was getting much more than 1000 merits per hour in a haz res with a kill warrant scanner. Sorry if this sounds like I'm flexing but I really don't like being accused of tting. I will come back to you with evidence as soon as i have time to do another CZ. Then some Youtubers or whatever can spread the love x
So you're saying you only kill around 10-15 ships in a CZ??
Also, just to be clear, are you doing Power Conflict Zones?
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Unfortunately, "earnt merits" doesn't currently generate an event in the journal (nor does very much in Powerplay), so it can't.
~50 merits, based on what I have seen so far (granted this is second hand info). By comparison, that's the equivalent of 5 x 1-million-credit donation missions at a suitable system station (that refresh every 10 minutes). Though how much you make can vary (between factions) for missions. Exo potentially is just flat-rate.
To put this into context, it's 8000 merits per rank (iirc) therefore it would be something like 16,000 million (16 billion) worth of exo, give or take, per rank; and there are 100+ ranks (one trillion six hundred billion, in exo, give or take).
Frontier's ability to over-react is legendary at this point. I really hope Frontier's just misplaced (at least two) zeros because that's just..
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Hello CMDR, I would never lie about figures in a game
I normally do high intensity czs, but thought I would try it out on a medium intensity, and was surprised about how long it took for the progress bar to complete. This is what happened, I'll happily try it again and come back to you with screenshots (although I have changed power to Yuri Grom now). I have changed powers 5 times already to gather information for our squadron to reach our new players. I don't appreciate being accused of lying at all. I've sacrificed my 45000 merit rank with Aisling in the name of testing things for my squad, and will happily do it again. I am here to help others, not try to posture about how great my way of playing is!
Dont get me wrong, I am also combat focused pilot, who mostly specialize in PVP's, who been playing since relase in 2014 (yes, since day 0), so I kinda know what I am doing, being quite adept in combat related both PVP and PVE based. I am probly one of most wanted cmdrs in galaxy(1,5B bounty on me only by cmdrs kills), and killed over 12k cmdrs in battle, and in PVE, I got over 36k for bounty claims, and 24k in combat bonds. Who knows how much I killed ships in anarchies, wich would be several thousands as well. I only died 204 times, wich 80% of that was because I used to "suicide" eagle with certain evil cmdrs back then, next to CG stations or alike. I dont die a lot in PVP(given my kill count), but when I do, its always spectacular, and takes lot of effort of many cmdrs, to get Me. This should give you idea how much I am "combat" focused
I am only ranked Elite 2 in combat but most of my PVE kills was done years ago, before Elite+ ranks came out, and honestly I dont care about rankings, since its not skill indicator, but more "grind" indicator, in my eyes
Enough about myself, lets go down to topic, shall we;
Only regular CZ's all flavors, I did try low, mid, and high, wich did each of them few times, I am afraid. Oh well...
Went specifically to see if I could gain atleast 2k or 3k merits per hour, after seeing your post, becasue I honestly would prefer doing nothing but combat, instead doing settlement speedruns or mining or rare running. See, 4k merits per CZ is really high, I cant image amount of npcs killed would be needed required for that, and in single CZ to begin with, based on my very last playing session where I went done only CZ's, thats if whole topic would be around regular CZ...
Kaine power I am pledged, this is why its diffrence, if there would be any diffrences in each powers before rank bonuses... as powers have diffrent bonuses, but these bonues aint work until required level is reached. Not sure when other powers bonuses starts at what level, but given kaine's power specific bonuses starts at quite high level, its safe to assume that other powers are similar.
Kaines dont have any active power conflict zones atm so I cant really relate, but normal CZ (in kaine territory) its gives merits as well and are working as described bellow, wich is meh, thats what I exacly did.
(You should mention at beggining that you meant power CZ and those only - these are new things and its indeed slightly diffrent compared to regular CZ's, and found more claims that its quite decent - so in end, you might be right, and I was simply wrong as did only regular CZ's)
Lets go further;
Kill count is about 20 on average, maybe bit more, before progress bar would be full. Time needed for each kill, is less than 1 min, as I use my Python2 with 4 OC pacifers and dual pre-engieered railguns... but to CZ to happen 1,5 hours? Well, when I do CZ's, these are soon as ends up after 20-25 mins... Does power confict zones are that much longer? I suppose these are.
And yes, I only try focus on deadly or elite ranked, since its rank based how much merits cmdr gain per kill, rather ship type. Each ship would give less than 100 merits, including 5 for scan. More like 50-60 merits per kill, and even less if lower ranked ships would be killed. CZ's are wierd, since progress is kill count based, not by ship type and thier rank.
In end, I was not able to gain significant merits per hour by doing REGULAR CZ or RES, and I think RES might be slightly better for merits earned, due of weaker npcs on average, but atleast never ending stream of them in RES... while REGULAR CZ ends up soon as objectives are done and after killed 15-20 ships. I dont have lots of time, I cant really afford to play more than few hours per each 2 days, due of my job. Thats why I seek for most efficent way to level up, given limited time I have atm for playing.
I guess, I need wait for my power to have power conflict somewhere, but who knows when it happens, or consider change to new power entirely, where concord cannons (wich is my main goal to even bother with PP) are within reasonable range of merits required. Oh well... probly it means I need go to mahon? He needs 39, wich is second lowerst requiment for these - and have active POWER CZ at moment.
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So in the end, you didn't even try a power conflict zone and went off on one at me..? And you admit that I may not be a lier after all? Thanks CMDR.
We are talking about powerplay, so I assumed you were doing powerplay conflict zones. Try one, then come back and tell me. It took much longer than a normal one. As I said, I've been experimenting with all the PP stuff and found it strange about how long it went on, and happily surprised at how many merits I racked up. Anyway, good luck and may the merits be with you.
PS. If there isnt a conflict zone with your power, there is nothing stopping you switching to gather information for others. You can get them back in no time. Take one for the team.
We are talking about powerplay, so I assumed you were doing powerplay conflict zones. Try one, then come back and tell me. It took much longer than a normal one. As I said, I've been experimenting with all the PP stuff and found it strange about how long it went on, and happily surprised at how many merits I racked up. Anyway, good luck and may the merits be with you.
PS. If there isnt a conflict zone with your power, there is nothing stopping you switching to gather information for others. You can get them back in no time. Take one for the team.
Like said, there is not any active power CZ right now so could not really test if wanted within my current power and switching out is not really being was being consider as option at time. I do apologize, but you should be more specific at very start.. as those power CZ are new thing, and after this litte forum misunderstooding of two of us I came to even realize there is such. From very start, I was convinced you did talked about regular CZ ealier, and did went after these, my bad.
I will try soon as one appears in kaine's, as meanwhile I just tried something else, and found something really good, might well as share;
---UPDATED---
<Now that Ive done it for litte over 2 hours, I got earned 15-16k by killing only SLF's, it turned out that they respawn endlessly! No need instance reset>
Enemy Powerplay Carriers.
It turns out that there is bunch of elite SLF around (about 7-8), each gives 68 to 72 merits.... thing is these things can be one shoted with rail bulids*, and the instance itself makes them reappear all the time. It takes about 2-3 mins to kill them all. So tactic is here very simple;
1 - Go to Enemy Powerplay Carriers with bulid that has atleast 4 rails.
2 - Make some noise, shot one trader or two, then main carrier will relase SLF, they are easly spoted by as "boost dots" quite distinct from other ships, and focus only at SLF's.
3 - Boost away, hold FAOFF, Reverski one shot each of SLF, it takes about quick as to needed fire same amount of railgun salvos as number of SLF's...
4 - Once SLF are done for, the new bunch will reappear. Repeat until bored. Do not shot anything else, again, focus only at SLF.
5 - Profit.
Yea, this will do I guess. Surely will come back once I try power conflict zones, to tell how it went, but I might reach required level I am aiming for before that happens. Only downside is that by doing it one can gain quite of bounty on themselfs (no fire zone, attack on clean, and few other bounties are appiled all the time, and it adds up)... but not any notoriety, so it can be paid off if needed once an cmdr is done with it. After all, credits are easy to come by.
*) Rail bulids include high speed ships with atleast 4 or more rails with long range. G5 all is advised.Phantom or orca is really good, at this.
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I appreciate the apology cmdr
like I said I would never lie to posture (admittedly I got triggered so then followed up with a post that was posturing!) so I also apologise for my tone. I was pleasantly surprised that the cz gave such merits.. I tried to find a power cz last night but it didn't show up in a conested system. Maybe this is rng and I was just unlucky this time, will test again later. And now I am really hoping that power on foot conflicts become a thing, I attach a screenshot to show a power on foot troop in a settlement that I got merits for killing, so this suggests to me that this may being reality soon.
Anyway, happy hunting and apologies again for not being clearer from the start. o7