Actually, the herald won’t be better at it in some ways.Okay so why do you all think it is so good? If you want a ship to do data runs the running part seems important and the herald is just better at that. Like the herald it has poor offence. The "smuggling tunnels" seriously if someone has invaded your ship how often will it really work that you can fight them off from those tunnels when you couldn't anyways. I am no connie fan either and I like medium sized ships are we reading data runner as electronic warfare ship? Suddenly there is a medium sized cargo ship that can always outrun the interdiction?
The main advantage it has over the connie for me is that the ship team have got better with layouts and cockpits but it massively pays for that in weopon terms and the connie can take a rover to (maybe the mercury can take a car). Cig have gone back to manual turrets to, as if a player is gonna log in and spend all day waiting for a fight because it will be so much fun when it happens to fire 2 size 2s.....
The herald has 1XS computer. The Mercury has 5xM computers. In terms of Info running, the Herald is the bike messenger, while the Mercury is the UPS truck. The Herald can get their faster, but the Mercury can transport a lot more data at one time.