Scanning ships for power play?

[Horsehoof]

Hi,

Is there any kind of logic to how you gain merits for power play by scanning ships? I always get merits when doing a full scan but sometimes I also get merits for just scrolling through the different targets. There's also the thing that I get 20 merits most often and 40 more seldom but I can't work out why. Has this been explained somewhere?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If a ship is Allied with you, then it autoscans when you select it, and you get merits immediately at that point. Otherwise, you have to actually scan it to get the merits.

If you cycle through autoscanned targets fast enough, you can sometimes scan two (or even three) in the time it takes to generate the merits message, so you get a single "you earn 40 merits" message rather than two "you earn 20 merits" messages.

 

[Horsehoof]

Thanks, that makes sense