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:
- So many carrier owners are now trying to do this a lot of the systems are full
- Addendum to #1, Carrier jump times are often 1 hour plus.
- 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