The current wording for preventing Antagonists from causing “excessive death” is too vague and non-specific.
The Amendment currently being: > MRP Amendment
As an antagonist, do not make the Emergency Shuttle uninhabitable or otherwise cause excessive death, damage, or destruction to the Emergency Shuttle.
It is a good idea to prevent mass killings at the rounds end with this amendment, but its wording leaves too much open to interpretation.
The issue:
An Antagonist may deem “excessive” being 30+ kills to accomplish taking out their target, so if they only accidentally kill 29 people, but still take out their target, they could argue that they were following the rules.
If this rule is to stay in place, it should specifically list what counts as “excessive” in game terms, aka, how many people crit, killed, or spaced, when on the escape shuttle.
This change will allow Antagonists to plan accordingly so that they do not cause “excessive death”, while still attempting to accomplish their goals.
This should also apply to the “MRP Amendment”, “do not make the Emergency Shuttle uninhabitable”, as uninhabitability is a relative term, and is also not defined in game terms.
In game terms, it could specify, spacing the shuttle as making it uninhabitable, which would do well to clarify to potential antagonists what they should specifically avoid doing if trying to accomplish their goals at round end.
The main goal of the changes to the amendment is to define what is prohibited specifically in game terms, so the wording is less ambiguous. This will both prevent round end mass killings, and false bans from Admins/moderators who’s views on what “excessive death”, differ from antagonist players.
One Alternative:
Change the ruling to prevent Syndicate Agents, or thieves specifically from using explosives on the escape shuttle (exempting space dragon’s fireballs).
Banning the use of explosives on the escape shuttle is probably the easiest blanket fix, to prevent people from causing shuttle-wide death and destruction.
Side Note: Since this is such a large change, it should be included in update notes so that affected players will easily see that the rule is now in place.
Another Alternative:
Gameplay/update change -
This change requires a code update, which would automatically fail the kill/steal objectives for the target, once the escape shuttle leaves with the kill target still alive on board, or the steal target not on their person when the shuttle leaves.
This is a much more difficult change to make, as it requires the games code to be changed in order to automatically fail the antagonists objectives once their kill target is on the escape shuttle and it has left, or if their theft target is not on their person and it has left, but this would be the best solution, as it is an in-game objective, which would bypass the need for the shuttle explosion rule, or change to the amendment in the first place.
Side note: This would also require the orders for Syndicate and thieves to be changed, in order to reflect that they now accomplish their goal “before” the shuttle leaves.
Ultimately, in its current state, the rule is too ambiguous as to what “excessive” means, and it will cause both issues with people getting killed at round end en masse, as well as admins punishing players based off their own interpretation of what excessive means.
Love to hear dev/moderator feedback on this to discuss possible solutions. I’ll do my best to monitor the topic to help.