I saw the new "abilities" slots in the new squads as well and thought, very cool. But like you i haven't gotten one to work just yet. I thought perhaps it was not completely done yet. Of course if it uses aoe abilities then ive been choosing the wrong ones!!  That is probably why it is failing for me. Will give it a try with an aoe, like "plasmastorm" and let you know.   

-Teal

p.s.  strikecraft with abilities is way cool!!!!      As for OP? We'll just have to up the armor or defense for the target craft. to balance it out. 

So far in my testing:

• Enemy AI doesn't like strike craft with abilities... just doesn't seem to know what to do with 'em (except Mine layers).
• I'm getting mini-dumped at what I think is some point around the time the AI starts building the new strikecraft.  No idea why yet. Nothing logged.
  
• If you remove weapons from strikecraft and use same Sins meshes, you will get an error about the weapon index out of range or such no matter what you set it too... seems harmless however.
• For utility strikecraft, i.e. Repair craft, you have to micromanage them, because the AI always sends them off to attack something... would ve nice of Ironclad could create some AI to manage 'support' strikecraft.  Only 'role' values that seem to be acceptable are 'fighter' and 'bomber'
• The AOE ability limitation is a pain... and doesn't make much sense as the squad has a specific target??  Can Ironclad change this?