Do public events give XP? If so, how does it scale based on location or type of event (Kill target vs Defend the thingy)?
2 Answers
The first public event you complete each day rewards you with a package at the postmaster. Opening this package grants 5,000 experience. For completing the event itself, I do not think there is any known experience gain, besides whatever you get for kill enemies. If you get some at the end of the event itself, I do not think it is a significant amount, otherwise people would probably have figured out a way to exploit this and power level.
Events give 500 points. I played with 2 others in a Defend the Warsat mission. I had the 9000-without-dying bounty on, killed myself with a rocket to drop it to 0, and waited without killing anybody and got 500. You can just do 2 patrol missions to get 500 (one gives 250, though target missions may give more, since they offer 25 vanguard points instead of 10).