Yeah, speaking of "open-ended ability possibilities", I'm pretty excited about using Python as a scripting language for this game... yes, a REAL language that people actually know and use every day!
One of the things I'm hoping to do with the Python scripting is to sort of unify the "data files" and the "scripting" aspects of modding... in my mind you could have small Python scripts embedded in a data file as formulas, and maybe even let formulas refer to other arbitrary data fields in the same record - e.g. instead of
Code:
500 - 50 * Level
250 - 25 * Level
you could have
Code:
500 - 50 * Level
Tonnage / 2
to reduce copy/paste errors... I'd just have to check for infinite reference loops and throw a parse error if that happens, instead of crashing the game!
And yeah, on the topic of arbitrary abilities, what I'm hoping to do with abilities is have preset abilities that do stuff automatically, but then also a "Custom" ability which you can throw any data you want into, similar to the AI Tags in SE4/SE5, only you can throw any number of values into them, not just two, and then scripts could check for that ability and do stuff with it...
Take all of this with a grain of salt though, and moderators, feel free to edit this post if I went over the edge... I do have a Python scripting prototype, but not anything that parses formulas out of data files or checks for abilities yet... I just don't see either of those as too difficult given the tools available
edit: Speaking of editing, my XML tags got messed up... forum admins, why do they get removed even INSIDE the code tags??? And what is this "vote now" button on the post-editing interface, anyway?