How do I level up mercs

[Rio]

I'm playing campaign.
So I have 4 combat mercs with me, piloting carriers with missiles loaded autopatrol etc

While raiding wormholes I got somewhere from lvl 20 to lvl 100. Yes, 100.
My mercs barely got 2 levels from 6 to 8. And its not like they were not trying, no, they attacked pirates all the time, also the damage mercs do is quite meh.

What is wrong with them?

[momoguru]

they get stronger as they lvl up. doing what they like, set them to autotask and they will do their thing to earn xp. i will check the calculations on my end again to make sure it looks correct.

[Rio]

They seem to get 1xp per hit, but it may be just because their damage is low, and don't see how to increase it besides levelling them up

[momoguru]

not all mercs are good mercs to hire. they are generated for the stations, and some have good equipment, some are just raider targets. i will be adjusting the merc xp gains.

[Rio]

Well I figured that not all mercs are good, but I think I hired ones with largest ships and bigger guns across any I could find

I suppose somewhere along the road, when (if?) we'll be able to custom equip merc it should get better

Maybe making mercs leech some of player exp (a skill?) could balance out a powerful player hiring greenhorn mercs? Like, a player receives (100-x*skill level)% exp and (x*skill level)% exp is shared between currently active mercs. A teamwork and all.

[momoguru]

okay, so in discord today, we worked out the calculations for merc XP trickle. the mercs now gains steady small trickle of xp as long as they are in formation with you. they get xp bonuses for being in action. (attacking, mining, salvaging, transporting). i also adjusted the xp for the merc modules.

tested for 3 hours and it really looks good so far.

[MrBlonde[GER]]

i think any merc should get a small amount of xp while on autotask. a recon merc on patrol for example doesn't get any xp right now, even though he's "on the job". it's sad to see them not being able to engage enemies before the autorities blow them up. :/ if i engage enemies, mercs don't learn anything new either, as if they're not even paying attention. :P
lovely game so far! i hope i can build a nice little fleet of ships soon. :)

[Lhetre]

Mercs seem to gain 1 xp/second idle, and 4 xp/second on autotask, even docked to stations with you.
Mercs mining gain 9 xp/second.
Mercs fighting seem to gain xp steadily plus a bonus when they hit an enemy? Have to verify the last one.