George the badges ARE your faction standing. You do faction missions and get them. Loot been real crappy last few weeks tho that is about par for this planet it seems. Some new faction missions and a mission to get an upgraded Heart fap but its bugged so is not really usable yet.
the badges, as your faction increases, 200, 500 and 900 badges it opens up new missions for you to gain even more faction by doing. Eventually they are supposed to have other things which the faction is good for like vendors etc but there is a bit of a problem with the vendor constantly being empty it seems. We keep hearing they are looking into it but never seem to see any solutions to it, just looking.
We are hoping that with this next VU they get some of the problems fixed they promised us would be fixed last VU. There are supposed to be some 'upgrades' to some areas as well due to work folks have been doing in them. Oh that's another thing, areas have progress meters on them, the more stuff you do in them the higher their percentage goes and when they hit 100, supposedly they get upgraded with more stuff. They can also 'undo' as well we are told. Personally I think it's stupid to 'undo' an area because it isn't being used enough according to some hidden standards, it just seems kind of self defeating but it is what it is.
If you need any other info about quests etc, you can always ask in #cyrene and generally there is someone who is more than willing to help you.
Welcome back
sluggo