EDPowerPlay

This page contains information about the Power Play sub-game in Elite: Dangerous.

Note that there has been a complete overhaul of the system in the Ascendancy game update in October 2024, generally known as Power Play 2.0, or PP2 for short. The information on this page refers to PP2. A key difference of PP2 to the original Power Play is that Merits (see below) do not decay over time. This key difference is why after 10 years I'm considering participation in Power Play again after my first experiences in 2015.

References

General information

• A great overview of PP2 on Inara.
• In game: Codex > Pilot's Handbook > Powerplay article.
• Video by CMDR Dituri from 10-Nov-2024.
• Powerplay Tools: Reference Card. A great overview, showing in a table at a glance all Power Play activities that exist and what particulars need to be taken into account when doing that activity.

Tools

• Powerplay Tools. This provides interesting graphs showing for each Power 1) how their systems are hierarchically organized, with the tree structure having the Power's HQ system at its root; and 2) a connectivity map illustrating how Fortified and Stronghold systems are connected. You can also enter the name of a Stronghold, Fortified or Exploited system to see this particular system's support and exploit connections.
• Merit Miner. A tool to locate the best mining spots for earning Merits.
• Powerplay Assistant: A wizard-like tool that lets you select 1) your power; 2) an activity you would like to do; and 3) the system near which you would like to become active. The tool then guides you through one ore two additional steps and finally suggests how to achieve your goal, complete with specific instructions how to do the task in-game.
• Inara allows to refine all sorts of searches with Power Play specific criteria.

Key points

• You have to pledge to one of 12 major Powers in the game.
• Once pledged you can improve your standing with your Power to improve the benefits you gain.
• You improve your standing by earning Merits. After earning a certain number of Merits you rise one rank.
• Once pledged you get a number of assignments per Cycle. Assignments are Power Play specific missions. These can be completed for additional Merits, but are completely optional. The only exception is that you must complete the initial 5 assignments that you get after pledging, to be able to go to rank 1.
• Power Play operates on the basis of Cycles that are one week long.

Benefits

When you reach a new rank you get one of the following benefits:

• A one-time "mini-care package", which consists of 250k Credits, 5 randomly chosen ship engineering materials, and 5 randomly chosen on-foot engineering materials.
• A permanent perk that is specific for the Power that you have pledged to. See the Inara overview for details.
• A permanent unlock of a Power Play specific ship module. All Powers unlock the same modules, but the order in which they unlock the modules is different. See the Inara overview for details.
• As you rank up the number of assignments you get per Cycle rises, from the initial 5 up to 10.

Notes:

• For ranks above 100 you only get a "care package", which is double the amount of things you get for the "mini-care package".
• Permanent benefits are only permanent as long as you remain pledged to your Power.

In addition to the benefits above, you may earn a salary once every Cycle:

• You must have earned at least 1 Merit in that Cycle to get any kind of salary.
• The salary amount is determined by comparing the number of Merits you earned this Cycle with the number of Merits all other CMDRs pledged to the same power have earned this Cycle.
• The rank system is similar to the rank system in Community Goals: Top 100%, top 75%, top 50%, etc.

Drawbacks

A verbatim copy of the Inara overview article, with emphasis added by me:

The only drawback of joining a Power is that it automatically changes your status to enemy of the other Powers, including the ones with the same allegiance (e.g. Federation, Empire, Alliance, Independent). Concretely speaking, this means that any opposite Power ship is allowed to attack you without incurring any bounty when you are in enemy-controlled systems.

In practice, the downside of Powerplay is negligible if you prefer to play in Solo or Private Group, since enemy-pledged NPCs are non-aggressive towards you the vast majority of the time. Only NPCs called "Power Security Force" will become hostile if they manage to scan you in enemy territory. But there are extremely few of them (including in the enemy stronghold systems), and they tend to be easily distracted by other NPCs, which makes avoiding their scans very easy. If you prefer playing in Open on the other hand, you should expect more frequent interdictions and fights from hostile CMDRs, although this is mitigated by the 0 rebuy cost perk offered by all Powers, and the fact that CMDRs from the same allegiance tend to have non-aggression pacts established.

In my personal experience, after playing for about 2 weeks, I can more or less confirm what was written above, with one important addition: Power Security Force NPCs are A LOT more aggressive at Fleet Carriers than at starports or ground stations! When docking at a Fleet Carrier, be sure to be very quick to land and get underground, especially when you are flying a small ship, or in general a ship with a weak shield. At one point in my PP 2 career I was destroyed in my Cobra Mk V with a 3D shield within about 15 seconds after the hostile NPC ship started attacking me.

How to get Merits

Summary

You earn Merits

• By completing the assignments you received for this Cycle.
• By performing Acquisition, Reinforcement or Undermining activities.

Bonuses and penalties

• Reinforcement activities earn less Merits than the other two, supposedly because they are carried out in the safer areas where your Power already has a strong influence. Currently the penalty is -35% for Reinforcement activities, while Acquisition and Undermining activities have a bonus of +5%.
• The amount of Merits that can be earned in an Undermining system are influenced by two further penalties. Both penalties are shown in the Galaxy Map when you select the Power Play view of a system.
  • The System Strength Penalty (SSP). System strenght is measured with the system's population, i.e. the penalty scales with population.
  • The Beyond Frontline Penalty (BFP). This scales by distance from systems controlled by YOUR Power. This means that players from different Powers may see different BFP values when viewing the same system.
  • The BFP is more severe than the SSP.
  • The scale for both penalties is: Standard, Moderate, High and Very High.
  • The value "Standard" means no penalty at all.
  • From the Powerplay Tools Reference Card: Due to the 40% difference between Reinforcement (-35%) and Undermining (+5%) activities, Reinforcement activities are roughly equivalent to Undermining activities affected by Moderate:Moderate penalties.
• Every Power has certain preferred activities, aligned to the Ethos of the Power. These activities receive a +50% bonus. Preferred activities are shown in the Power Play view of a system in the Galaxy Map or the System Map.

See the Inara overview article for more details on how the individual activities work. The Powerplay Tools Reference Card is also an excellent resource, although the tabular presentation without any color codings makes it more difficult to read.

At the time of writing, several sources (including the Inara article) state that the fastest way to gain Merits is to mine & sell Platinum. In my experience my maximum merit earning rate was around 20-25k Merits per hour, with Platinum laser mining, but also with collecting Power data from Odyssey Tourist settlements.

Selling mined commodities

Links

• The go-to tool for this is Merit Miner.
• The general mining tool edtools.cc may also be useful, however it seems that Merit Miner knows more hotspots than edtools.cc.

General notes:

• Selling mined commodities can be done for all activity types, i.e. Reinforcement, Acquisition (contested only) and Undermining activities.
  • Undermining and Reinforcement: The commodities must be mined and sold in the same system, which is the system to be reinforced or undermined.
  • Acquisition: The commodities must be mined in a Fortified or Stronghold system of your Power, and sold in an Acquisition system within 20Ly or 30Ly, respectively.
• Reinforcement should be avoided if the goal is to earn maximum merits, because Reinforcement activities incur a -35% penalty.
• The amount of Merits you earn is directly tied to the sales price of the mined commodity. Because of this you should only perform this activity when you can sell at a station whose controlling faction is in Boom state (because Boom lets the prices skyrocket).
• Platinum is the most profitable metal, so you should find a mining system that has a Platinum hotspot. You can then still decide whether you want to also mine other metals in addition to Platinum, to have a faster turnaround time.
• Given the above restrictions, you usually don't have many opportunities to choose from. But if you do have several options, then it is advantageous to choose systems with the following properties:
  • A mining system with Pristine reserves.
  • The station where you want to sell the mined commodities has a High Tech or Industrial economy, because those generally have higher demand and prices. Conversely, the station should not have a Refinery economy.
  • The station where you want to sell the mined commodities has a demand for each commodity that is at least 4x the amount you want to sell. A lower demand will incur a heavy bulk sales tax, cutting down not only profits but also the amount of Merits earned.
  • When Undermining: Exploited over Fortified over Stronghold (because of the System Strength Penalty).
  • When Undermining: Farther away from the enemy Power's home system (because of the Beyond Frontline Penalty).

How to find good spots

• The premier tool designed for the purpose is Merit Miner.
• A more manual approach is to perform two searches and then find intersections
  • Search 1
    • Undermining: Search Inara for stations that are controlled by a faction that is in Boom state and has a large landing pad, and the system is controlled by a Power that is not your own (here you have to try one Power after the other because Inara does not let you search for "Power != Your Power"). Example search
    • Acquisition: TODO
  • Search 2
    • Use edtools.cc to find systems with a Platinum hotspot near a given reference system.
  • Make sure that the results of both searches contain only unique system names.
  • Copy/paste the two lists of system names into a single list and count each system's number of occurrences, e.g. in this online tool or using any other similar tool (I like Unix command line tools).
  • When you find counts >= 2 you have found an intersection that is a candidate system.
  • The method is not certain, though, it still needs manual inspection, in particular whether the market prices and demand are suitable.

Merit Miner settings

• Reference system = <Your desired location> (e.g. Polevnic, the home system of Pranav Antal)
• Distance = 500 ly (the maximum distance that the tool allows, in order not to miss any opportunities)
• Your Power = <Your Power> (e.g. Pranav Antal)
• Power Goal = Undermine or Acquisition
  • For maximizing Merit earnings I never select Fortification, because of the -35% Fortification penalty.
• Mineral/Metal = Platinum
• Ring Type = Hotspot
• Reserve Level = All
  • If you set this to "Pristine" (as would be ideal) the search results may become empty. It's better to start out with all options, and then refine later.
• Mining Type = Laser Surface
• Min Demand = 2500
  • In order not to hit the bulk sales tax when selling, a market's demand should be at least 4x the amount of commodities you plan to sell.
  • A Cutter load is 512 tons, therefore choosing 2500 for the demand should be on the safe side.
• Landing Pad size = L
  • For the Cutter a large landing pad is required.
• Add mineral/metal = Default
  • Here additional minerals/metals can be specified that should be displayed in the "Other commodity" field of the stations in the search result.
• System State = Boom

Examples with a Cutter with 512t Cargo Capacity

Examples for mining for Merits

Selling information						Mining information				Run information						Notes
System Name	Power	Status	System Strength Penalty	Beyond Frontline Penalty	Station	System Name	Ring	Reserves	Hotspot(s)	Date	Duration	Commodities	Merits earned	Credits earned	Merits rate
Undermining
Meticuli	Yuri Grom	Exploited	Moderate	Standard	Meticuli	McCulley Gateway	Planet 2, ring A	Common	Yes (2)	03-Jun-2025	3h 7m	483 Platinum, 83 Osmium	58'623 + 3683 = 62'306	117'797'282	333 Merits / minute 19'991 / hour	-
										04-Jun-2025	2h 48m	469 Platinum, 53 Osmium	56334 + 4943 = 61'277	117'208'930	365 Merits / minute 21'885 / hour	-
										08-Jun-2025	2h 27m	382 Platinum, 33 Osmium, 9 Palladium, 32 Gold, 45 Silver, 19 Gallite (collected by accident)	43'940 + 3011 + 294 + 931 + 1184 + 138 = 49'498	93'798'954	336 Merits / minute 20'203 / hour	-
Reinforcing
Pegasi Sector CL-X c1-17	Pranav Antal	Fortified	Standard	Standard	Pegasi Sector CL-X c1-17	Hooker Depot	Planet 1, ring A	Pristine	Yes (2)	09-Jun-2025	1h 53m	341 Platinum, 37 Osmium, 42 Palladium, 47 Gold, 54 Silver	38'199 + 3011 + 3148 + 1216 + 1263 + 1266 = 48'103	96'753'414	426 Merits / minute 25'541 / hour	-
										09-Jun-2025	1h 57m	353 Platinum, 86 Osmium, 23 Palladium, 43 Gold, 17 Silver	35'934 + 8112 + 665 + 1151 + 405 = 46'267	105'665'356	395 Merits / minute 23'727 / hour	-
										10-Jun-2025	2h 08m	365 Platinum, 31 Osmium, 53 Palladium, 42 Gold, 30 Silver	38'061 + 2672 + 1479 + 1016 + 525 = 43'753	99'951'255	342 Merits / minute 20'509 / hour	-
										12-Jun-2025	2h 06m	362 Platinum, 60 Osmium, 20 Palladium, 43 Gold, 37 Silver	38'474 + 5057 + 317 + 1151 + 837 = 45'836	103'224'048	364 Merits / minute 21'827 / hour	-
										13-Jun-2025	1h 53m	319 Platinum, 61 Osmium, 31 Palladium, 77 Gold, 34 Silver	34'569 + 4388 + 811 + 2033 + 621 = 42'422	95'713'207	375 Merits / minute 22'525 / hour	-
										15-Jun-2025	2h 11m	392 Platinum, 21 Osmium, 33 Palladium, 60 Gold, 16 Silver	40'032 + 2004 + 839 + 1619 + 332 = 44'826	104'366'859	342 Merits / minute 20'531 / hour	-
										16-Jun-2025	1h 59m	355 Platinum, 54 Osmium, 51 Palladium, 36 Gold, 26 Silver	39'026 + 5153 + 1419 + 904 + 621 = 47'123	102'247'162	396 Merits / minute 23'759 / hour	-
										17-Jun-2025	2h 04m	328 Platinum, 50 Osmium, 21 Palladium, 65 Gold, 58 Silver	34'239 + 4771 + 579 + 1674 + 1385 = 42'648	96'460'880	344 Merits / minute 20'636 / hour	-
										18-Jun-2025	1h 54m	308 Platinum, 52 Osmium, 51 Palladium, 53 Gold, 57 Silver	33'196 + 3530 + 1448 + 1456 + 1362 = 40'992	93'135'752	360 Merits / minute 21'575 / hour	Reached rank 95

Download Power data from Odyssey Tourist settlements

Links

• Video from 03-Jun-2025 by DingBatDave, showing how to farm Tourist settlements for Power data. The video advertises "Up To 60'000 merits per hour", which in my view is too much, but it's still an excellent guide how to do the activity.

Activity notes

• Reinforcement: Deliver the data items in the same system where you got them.
• Undermining: Download the data items in the Undermined system, deliver them in any system under Pranav Antal control.
• Acquisition: Download the data items in the Acquisition system, deliver them in any Fortified/Stronghold system that is within 20/30 ly of the Acquisition system.

Method

• Tourist settlements are best for downloading Power data. Each data port will yield 1-2 data items.
• Find Tourist settlements that are controlled by an Anarchy faction.
  • In Undermining/Acquisition systems the download is illegal.
  • In Reinforcement systems the download is not illegal, but the data ports are often located in Restricted areas which makes it difficult to access them legally.
  • Example Inara search for finding potential settlements near Meticuli. When you go for an Acquisition system, make sure to check that a Fortified or Stronghold system is in range!
• Use a small ship so you can land anywhere.
• The best settlement is the one with OMG layout 4. It has 8 data ports.
  • Land at the small landing pad
  • The Alarms console is upstairs in the HAB building which is ahead and to the left of the small landing pad.
    • You can enter either from the back airlock (i.e. facing the landing pad; here you have to use the Arc Cutter, but nobody will notice), or from the front airlock (facing the settlement's main road; airlock has no restrictions).
    • Go up 2 stairs to floor 2, walk to the end of the corridor and then enter the CBN room on the left.
    • The CBN room is protected by a level 1 door, so before you can enter you need to get a scan from one of the NPCs that you encounter on the way. I like to wait on the landing pad after the second stairs because an NPC will have a break there.
    • The CBN room is a restricted area, but usually no one is in there.
    • Leave through the front airlock, turn left, then work your way zig-zagging through the other 6 HAB buildings.
    • The Power Centre has no data port.
• The 2nd best settlement is the one with OMG layout 3. It has 7 data ports.
  • Land behind the PWR building
  • Disable alarms in PWR
  • On one side of the PWR building is one big HAB building => go here next
  • On the other side of the PWR building 5 more HAB buildings (the last has the bar area) => work your way through
  • Return to ship
• The 3rd best settlement is the one with OMG layout 3. It has 6 data ports.
  • Land at Landing Pad
  • Power building is on one side of the landing pad => Go there first and disable alarms
  • 7 HAB buildings (one of them with the bar area) on the other side => walk to one end, then work your way through
  • Return to ship
• The worst settlement is the one with OMG layout 1. It has only 2 data ports.
  • In general it's not worth visiting this settlement type, not only because it only has 2 data ports, but even worse the settlement has two parts that are far away from each other and the Alarms console is in one part while the data ports are in the other part.

The only variable of the 8 data port Touriset settlement is the location of the data port in the HAB building where the Alarms console is.

• Poroshenko Terminus, planet A 5, Uolungura: The data port in the Alarms console HAB building is in a room on the ground floor: Heading from the back to the front airlock, turn left, and then in the DORM room in the back.
• Benitez Lodgings, planet C 1, Uolungura: Not visited.

Statistics

• Run 1
  • 756 Merits for 2x Power Association Data (2x 360 + 5% = 378)
  • 3402 Merits for 6x Power Industrial Data (6x 540 + 5% = 567)
  • 1512 Merits for 4x Power Political Data (4x 360 + 5% = 378)
  • 5670 Merits for one run of 12 data items (1.5 items per data port on average)
• Runs 2-5
  • Duration = 26, 22, 19 and 17 minutes.
  • I was still learning: Unnecessary bounty scans, double-checking data types, downloading extra data items that look interesting, going slowly instead of fast so as not to attract any guards' attention.
  • About 2 minutes are needed to undock the ship, go to supercruise, then return to the settlement.
  • 4'914 Merits for 13x Power Association Data
  • 10'773 Merits for 19x Power Industrial Data
  • 4'914 Merits for 13x Power Political Data
  • 20'541 Merits for 4 runs of 45 data items (1.4 items per data port on average)
• Runs 6-9
  • Durations
    • 12 mins, strictly kept to downloading
    • 14 mins, with lots of fighting and also additional downloads
    • 15 mins, again lots of fighting, went through the front door, which was fine, but I got
    • 13 mins, all went well until at the end there was a massacre
    • Slightly below 2 minutes on average to get back to the settlement
    • 68 mins for the entire session, from undocking at Kooi Gateway to docking again
  • 7'938 Merits for 21x Power Association Data
  • 5'103 Merits for 9x Power Industrial Data
  • 6'804 Merits for 18x Power Political Data
  • 19'845 Merits for 4 runs of 48 data items (1.5 items per data port on average)
• Runs 10-13
  • This time I tried to jump down in the 2 story building from the second to the first room floor, while download is ongoing. I had limited success because the navigation is difficult.
  • Durations: 11, 12, 11, 10:39 minutes (new record).
  • Slightly below 2 minutes on average to get back to the settlement
  • 7'182 Merits for 19x Power Association Data
  • 5'103 Merits for 9x Power Industrial Data
  • 7'560 Merits for 20x Power Political Data
  • 19'845 Merits for 4 runs of 48 data items (1.5 items per data port on average)
• Conclusion
  • Assuming you collect 12 data items per run (1.5 items per data port)
  • And one third of them of them are the more valuable data items
    • In 13 runs I had 43 out of 153 = 28.1% of the more valuable ones
  • The yield per run is 4 * 567 (2268) + 8 * 378 (3024) = 5292 merits
  • 4.5 runs per hour = 23'814
  • The 60'000 Merits per hour in the video title would require 11.3 runs per hour, or 5.3 minutes per run, including undocking and docking again from the settlement (which from my experience is clearly more than 1.5 minutes).
  • So unless the content creator received more Merits per data item than I do, I would say it is quite impossible to achieve 60'000 Merits per hour.

Doing weekly assignments

• As you start out you receive 5 assignments per week.
• But as you rank up this will increase to 10 assignments per week.
• Each assignment yields between 1800 and 5600 Merits upon completion.
• Assuming an average of 3700 Merits per assignment, 5 of them grant 18'500 Merits.
• I avoid certain assignments ("commit crimes" comes to mind, which requires you to collect bounties on your own head), but others can be a relatively easy way to collect a few additional Merits on the long road to the maximum rank. Besides they can be a diversion from other, more grindy Merit collecting methods.

Megaship scanning

I don't know many details about this activity, except the following:

• Certain systems contain Megaships that can be scanned for Merits.
• The way this works is
  • Honk the system to find the Megaship in the Navigation panel.
  • Travel to the Megaship and jump into its instance.
  • Select the Megaship in the "Contacts" tab of the Navigation panel.
  • Activate the firegroup that contains the Datalink Scanner.
  • Deploy hardpoints.
  • Scan the Megaship with the Datalink Scanner.
  • Aproach the Megaship until the "Log Uplink" entry appears in the "Contacts" tab of the Navigation panel.
  • Select the "Log Uplink" entry, then navigate to within 200m distance.
  • Scan the "Log uplink" with the Datalink Scanner. This will earn some Merits.
• Every week someone in the Pranav Antal Discord server calculates one or more routes of systems controlled by Pranav Antal where such Megaships are located.
• I don't know how these routes are calculated, but following this route will earn me a sensible amount of Merits while also fortifying my Power's systems. Besides it's a nice diversion from other, more grindy methods to earn Merits.
• In general I earn 585 Merits per Megaship scan.
• In addition I earn 13 Merits per ship that I scan en route to each Megaship location, or while in the Megaship instance.

Examples

• 08-Jun-2025: In a run with my Cobra Mk V that took me 1h 50m I scanned 20 Megaships for 11'700 Merits. Effectively I earned 12'909 Merits because of additional scans of normal ships. This makes for a total of 6382, or effectively 7041, Merits per hour. Not really great, but as mentioned a nice diversion.

Selling Exobiology data

In Discord someone said on 01-Jun-2025 in #priority-chat: Any Undermining system.

TODO

Transporting Power commodities

• You can only get a certain amount of a given Power commodity each time you visit a Power contact. Afterwards you have to wait 30 minutes until you can get the next batch.
• Transporting Power commodities requires cargo space! If your Power contact will not hand out any more of a particular Power commodity, even after you have waited 30 minutes, then check that you have sufficient cargo space.
• Undermining
  • Collect "Utopian Dissidents" from the Power contact in a Stronghold system.
  • Deliver to the Power contact in an Undermining system.

Selling Rare Goods

• Acquisition
  • Sell the Rare Goods in the Acqusition system.
  • Cannot buy & sell in the same system.

Rescue Escape Pods

• Reinforcing
  • Deliver the Escape Pods to the Power contact in the same system.
  • Important: You cannot deliver the Escape Pods unless the station also has an operational Search & Rescue service!
  • Scan the system's nav beacon, then look for "Power Wreckage" signal sources.
  • Caution: When you jump into the signal source instance, be on the lookout for enemy Power ships.
  • Inara search for the closest system to Diaguandri controlled by Pranav Antal that is in state "Fortified" or "Stronghold", that has a starport with medium landing pad and that has an operational Search & Rescue service.

Reinforcement and Undermining

Some notes:

• There is a cap to how much a system can be reinforced or undermined in a single Cycle, specifically only one reinforcement level can be gained or lost each Cycle. This means a system cannot be reinforced to rise directly from Exploited to Stronghold in the same cycle, or undermined to drop from Stronghold to Exploited in the same cycle.

Questions and answers

Where can I pledge to a Power?

In the ship panel on the right, select "Power Play", then select a Power, then press the "Pledge Allegiance" button.

Where can I see my assignments?

• In the ship panel on the right, select "Power Play", then on the right-hand side of the screen select "Weekly Assignments".
• In the navigation panel on the left, select the "Transactions" tab, then the vertical tab "Powerplay Assignments"

How do I collect my care package rewards?

On any starport (regardless of whether it's controlled by the Power you are pledged to, or any other Power), go to the Contacts section, select the Power Contact entry, then select "Collect Care Package". Care packages do not expire.

How do I collect my salary?

On any starport (regardless of whether it's controlled by the Power you are pledged to, or any other Power), go to the Contacts section, select the Power Contact entry, then select "Claim Salary".

Will I forfeit my salary if I don't collect it within the next week?

???

What does the "Contested" state mean?

• In-game a system is Contested if two or more Powers are in range of a system and could potentially acquire it, AND if the powers are past the Conflict Threshold.
• On Inara a system is Contested already if two or more Powers are in range of a system and could potentially acquire it. The Conflict Threshold is NOT taken into consideration.

What is a Control Point (CP)?

The number of Control Points a Power has in a system indicates how strong of Power's presence in the system is. Bonuses and penalties for Reinforcement (-35%), Undermining (+5%) and Acquisition (+5%) activities affect the Merits you gain but the underlying CPs are roughly the same for all kinds of activities. There are two underlying ratios between Merits and CPs: For Reinforcement activities the ratio is 2.6:1 (2.6 Merits to 1 CP), while for Undermining and Acquisition activities the ratio is 4.2:1.

Power specific notes

Pranav Antal

At which ranks are there bonuses for selling Exobiology data?

• +10% at rank 24 (167k Merits)
• +15% at rank 42 (311k Merits)
• +20% at rank 52 (391k Merits)
• +25% at rank 78 (599k Merits)
• +30% at rank 94 (727k Merits)

Can I sell Exobiology to earn merits & rise in ranks?

• Yes, but it needs to be done in Reinforcement systems.
• Since the rebalancing update of 30-Apr-2025, a -35% modifier applies to Merits gained from all Reinforcement activities.
• The +50% Ethos bonus (estimated, as per Inara overview article) for gaining Merits does not apply to selling Exobiology data, because that is an Exploration activity and Pranav Antal has the Covert Ethos when doing activities in Reinforcement systems.
• Note that selling data in Reinforcement systems earns control points for Pranav Antal, so it may be a nice move to coordinate with players that support Pranav Antal to sell the data in the right places. For selling Exobiology data the amount of control points earned is the amount of Merits divided by 6.