oops, "Assassignations" :)

I would never have taken the mission had I realized how bad it would affect my standings. Maybe the missions should be about hitting specific targets, as opposed to just offending the nations.

I also thought, that for the standing loss, the combat xp was very low, not much of a trade off. Even as a pirate, the mission would not be very beneficial to the character.

At the very least, it should warn you before you accept the mission, of the resulting loss.

Assassination

I believe Assignation is the act of assigning.

It's a really crappy mission, and will soon be replaced. Luckily, I asked around before I took it.

I agree. The devs are working on making a mission editor that the playerbase will be able to use to create missions, and a better assassination mission is one of the first ones I want to see. Here's a thread I posted a while back about what how I think it could be improved: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11314

Gee, I wonder how killing a serco defbot in serco space will affect my serco standings...

I agree with Genka, it is kind of obvious you will be penalized for killing an NPC within its nation; of course, new players don't usually know this, but that's rather a flaw in the tutorials than a flaw with the mission or the faction system. In my opinion the mission works, but is not really meant for people who want to remain on the good side of all three nations. People who couldn't care less about nation standing (like most pirates) should have no trouble taking it, if it's worth their while. Also, note the mission is available to all three nations, not just the Union.

And quite frankly, having a mission where you go kill someone inside nation space and said nothing says nothing about it would be extremely broken. Better if the mission made the consequences clear, or if it was modified/available according to the player's nation.