There's supposedly some benefit to visiting cantinas occasionally, and the one that's most obvious to me is that after leaving a cantina, you gain double experience points for a certain amount of time.

However, I think I have seen hints of some benefit to logging out while in a cantina, and I think that benefit is that you gain XP for the duration of your time spent in the cantina, even if you don't log out.

I could be wrong about both benefits, so it would be nice to get some clarification. Also, an in-game explanation of the purpose of cantinas and the benefits they bestow would be nice too.

So how about it? Would someone like to take a shot at explaining why I should log off in a cantina rather than out in the field? Would a dev like to add an explanation of rest areas/cantinas to the game manual and/or in-game codex?

Cantina's give you a 'rested state'. The longer your stay in a Cantina, the more 'rested state' you will accrue.

e.g. Stay in a Cantina for 10 minutes, the next thing you kill will give you double xp, log out overnight in a Cantina and instead of gaining 2000 xp for your next few kills you'll gain 4000 xp when you log back in.

These figures are very approximate, but they're just to illustrate how 'rested state' works.

There's a little information in the Game Manual about it, but not much.

Cantinas are also places where you can go if your NPC wants to have a private talk. If the Cantina doesn't work, then take the NPC to your ship instead and talk there.