This suggestion is reference to this comment I made on another suggestion. Now that I am once again being constantly attacked immediately after medding out, I also have a personal incentive to make it harder to abuse the API.

First, I'll state that the API should not give the player using it a significant advantage over players who don't. And by getting live data about every player, you can easily just spam their endpoint to know when someone uses medouts to leave the hospital.

The suggestion isn't necessarily this exact proposed change, instead I'd be happy with any solution that fixes this problem. For example, one could also add a timeout per key and queried player or reduce the amount of allowed queries per minute for an individual player. The delay could also be decreased or increased, depending on what fits better. Just something to make it somewhat playable.

There were a couple concerns mentioned in the linked thread, so let me address those:

1. This is a crime game, getting attacked is to be expected - I agree with that and I don't want to make it easier to avoid hits, I just wanna create an even ground between players utilizing the API and players that don't.
2. Player abuse protection is already in the game. Just train harder - This works, unless your playstyle revolves around specifically keeping your stats low. Or you cannot outscale them for another reason. And the abuse protection mechanics mentioned (bounties, cartels) don't work against scripters, since they can just med out and hit you with the help of scripts quicker than anyone could beat them.
3. This will not stop the truly dedicated since they can just spam-reload - While that's true to some extend, nobody has the time to manually reload all the time, while the automated solution of an API-call requires no additional effort.
4. It creates unnecessary server load - So does calling the API constantly. Arguebly, a script is even worse since it can run without player input and therefore it can be run for longer while also doing other things.
5. In Torn, you'd be slow if you don't hit your target within a few seconds - Yes, but this isn't Torn and if I wanted to get the Torn experience, I'd play Torn instead. It's a much smaller and in my opinion less toxic game that shouldn't try to become a clone of its inspiration. I very much enjoy playing here but not on Torn because it's not as big and hyper-competitive. Just emulating their culture because it's a similar game probably isn't a good idea.

If you have other suggestions to fix the problem, feel free to add a comment. I know this suggestion might be controvertial, but I think many will agree that the API should only be used as a tool for better game management rather than a gameplay edge over other players.