Characters start as heroes and their power level is not supposed to change a lot during the fairly long campaign.

The base rate of gain is 1-2 points/session. Get 1pt/4 hours of play, but only get the int(value) directly, fractions go to a special store that you can use to buy things like bionics, special powers, training and similar increases.

If you buy bionics or other ways of getting more points, your active points go to negative and you only get 1 point/session to spend on things, all other points go to buying off the debt. In case of bionics it is often also good to buy a suitable nuisance effect that you can then freely buy off later. This represents that most people take a bit of time to adjust to new bionics(typically 1-2 months for minor bionics and upti 6 months for majors).