Merits and Awards

A merit is currency from awards (medals and honors). Spend it on permanent upgrades: education speed, bank interest, life, nerve, battle-stat passives, weapon masteries, and more (Merit). Track progress live on Merits & awards.

• Awards - each medal or honor generally grants 1 merit.
• Buy with points - Points Building, 300 points each. Cap: 1 purchase per 2 levels (max 50 at level 100).
• Merits are not tradeable. Fixing bad spends means a reset, which costs points.
• Every track goes 1 → 10. Cost: 1+2+…+10 = 55 to max one upgrade. 27 tracks exist; you cannot max everything.
• 7/10 costs 28; 10/10 costs 55. Two tracks at 7/10 ≈ one track at 10/10.
• Paid reset - 500 points first, then +250 each time, capped at 5000. Free resets (book / Christmas) do not raise the paid price.

One default path when you have not specialized yet (shaped by Romarocky / Shakirion):

1. Education Length → 10/10 - first max for almost everyone. Speeds every future course (2% per pip → 20%). Applies to the next course you start. Often reset off after key courses finish so those 55 merits move elsewhere.
2. Bank Interest → 7/10, then 10/10 once cash is actually invested - +5% APR per pip on your next investment. Scale with deposit size toward the $2b cap.
3. Life Points and Critical Hit Rate toward 5-7, then higher later - life is the “5th combat stat”; crit is +0.5% per pip (wiki base crit ≈ 12%).
4. Crime Progression toward 5-7 - +1% XP and skill per pip. Helps CE for OC 2.0. Usually better than early Nerve.
5. Battle-stat passives on the stats you train (often main DEF or DEX, then STR/SPD; leave the unused fourth) - +3% combat effect per pip, not shown on profile.
6. One weapon mastery once loadout is stable - rifles are the usual war default; muggers often want piercing. +1% damage / +0.2 accuracy per pip.

• Skip early: Awareness (city finds stay sparse even at 10/10) and Addiction Mitigation (does not cut addiction gain or rehab count).
• Employee Effectiveness - only if directors ask; useless as company director.
• Hospitalizing / Stealth / Masterful Looting / Nerve - playstyle picks, not the default first 100 merits.

Start from the default ladder, then apply these deltas (~200 merits early, ~400 later). Full templates: Romarocky.

Use Merits & awards for the full catalog. Filter Adobi 200-day path to follow Adobi’s spreadsheet. Chevon - Easy Merits is a shorter “do these now” list.

• Church donations - Pious / related tiers ($100k / $1m).
• Pocket Money - any city bank investment.
• Clotted - self-hosp (Ipecac; wrong blood bag after Intravenous Therapy).
• Landlord - rent out a cheap property.
• Historian - open a newspaper chronicle and stay long enough.
• Going Postal / Friendly Fire - defeat a coworker / factionmate (ask first).
• Double Dragon - assist on a kill (or loot-ranger NPC assists).
• Faction chain honors: chaining - call them in chat.

Passive +3% per pip in combat. Does not change the number on your profile. Max 10 (+30%).

+1% damage and +0.2 accuracy per pip for that class. Max 10. Pick the class you actually fight with.

1. Open Awards → Merits and sync TornW3B Merits.
2. Max Education Length first; stack Bank only as deposits grow.
3. Follow the default ladder to ~Life/Crit/Crime 5-7 before specializing.
4. Apply your build delta (war / trade / mug / crime).
5. Farm Adobi / Chevon easy awards; call chain honors in faction chat.
6. Prefer free resets over paid; plan Education Length reset after key courses.

• Torn wiki - Merit
• Torn wiki - Awards
• Romarocky - Merits guide 2025
• Shakirion - How to spend merits
• Chevon - Easy Merits
• Adobi - 200 merits in 200 days
• TornW3B Merits tracker