I'm in the middle of creating a new race for rebellion, and I have a few questions as far as abilities are concerned; some specifically deal with new rebellion coding parameters.  For instance, there is a "place holder mine" object for targeting, used as part of the three nanite swarm abilities.  Those three also use an IncreaseOwnerAbilityLevel which, naturally, increases the level of a single ability (by the index, e.g. the first ability, etc.).  There's also the "amplify next ability" used for the TEC rebel's titan, and the boolean modifier associated with it.

I am thinking about a research ability that would either award a portion of experience for destroyed frigates (and maybe other stuff) to friendly ships, and/or an ability that would buff the abilities of friendly ships on death.  In the former case I think the place-holder mine thing might be used somehow, and the latter would use one of the other two buffs.  The issue is that I want it to be temporary and general; I think that the increase ability level is a poor fit, because 1. it seems permanent, 2. it would require one parameter per slot, though this isn't insurmountable, and 3. it would probably require extra levels for all of the abilities.  While this isn't too much of a problem for whole-new frigates for example, capital ships and the like pose a problem, as they can (and probably will) have at least one level 4 ability by level 10.  I have no clue what would happen if the ability's level is already maxed out; I'd also want to reverse this somehow; this method would be impossible with only one buff, but IIRC the max instant actions are 6 or 7 per buff, so five for each slot + one for an "onBuffFinish" decrement level, assuming i could use the Increase level in reverse via a negative number....

Of course, this buff does seem to be potentially useful for an "upgrade ship" feature, a la the E4X mod; though it would require a bit of planning as far as the ability slots were concerned (though using the fifth slot could be a workaround to an extent) it could still be quite useful as a potential method of adding/faking additional  capital ship levels (4X3+1X2 = 14 "vanilla" levels, plus an additional 6 to play around with using the ultimate and the fifth slot; leaving a grand total of 20)

The problem being, of course, that you'd have to impose "soft" barriers to prevent instant max outs, perhaps by, for example, making the ability require research (the fleet training one should be good), materials, and have a high cooldown.  Also, because the buff applies to one slot at a time, one could then hypothetically have five separate upgrades (though they might not have much in common unless you'd be willing to move abilities 0-3 around for a somewhat better lore-ish handwave) with their own costs, etc.  Perhaps even making the structures themselves highly limited somehow.

Anyway, back to the original thread.  The other one- amplify ability- is all around a more attractive option for creating a general fleet-buff; but it also has some issues.  Namely, it seems that you need 1. the boolean operator AND 2. an OnCondition inherent in the augmented buff, referring to the amplify buff boolean.  Again, this isn't an insurmountable problem (given the whole new race thing- adding this to an extant race would be a nightmare) but it could be somewhat tedious, and might run into an instant-action limit and thus require additional buff layers.  Still, even with all of that, this seems a better option.

There are three other abilities, which are more explicitly thought out.  I want the colony capital's ultimate ability to spawn a star base (the second level would provide a damage reduction and/or share damage between the capital ship and the WIP-star base, and/or reduce the cost or build time somehow) but again I'm not sure how to do this.  Spawning a constructor frigate isn't what I'm after- I want a channeling ability (deployment) that doesn't consume the capital, allowing the high-tier ship to greatly expedite mid-late game expansion and fortification.  The Vasari Titan's micro-phase jump ability has an "arbitrary ranged buff" thing which basically allows you to place an arbitrarily ranged and sized circle; this might be the way to go.  Other than that....  I don't know if the instant-Action used to create a star-base can be used through a buff rather than an ability; my initial suspicion is no, but I haven't tested anything yet.

The second would be a shield projection type ability for a guardian type frigate, that would boost mitigation and/or armor upon the failure of the protected vessels' shields (e.g. stuff under the bubble gets a buff if their shields fall AND the bubble is still up).  As the only way of checking if a shield is down is via Finish Condition (unfortunately there's no "shields less than % like I think there is for hull) I need a bit of a workaround.  My thought is to apply a buff to self via the shield projection, which expires either after the same time as the bubble, if the target no longer has the shield bubble buff (moved out, the original ship died, or either shield failed etc.).  Upon the buff finish it would apply another buff, which would apply the final armor/mitigation bonus if the target still has the shield bubble.

I think that should work.  Not entirely sure, though.

Finally, as a side note, does magnetize work on frigates?  It currently affects corvettes and fighters, but I'm making a "spawn wormhole on victim" titan Ultimate that should suck the little buggers in for massive damage.

If magnetize doesn't work I could use a reverse repulsion field and "make dead-> damage target" workaround, but that feels a bit unwieldy, insofar as the timing is concerned.  This is more a matter of testing; I was just wondering if someone has already tried it, rather than finding out in the middle of testing a crapload of other stuff vis a vis a new race.

Finally finally (For reals) I just thought of something; namely could a repulsion type effect work on a starbase or planet module, as a "planet tug" type thing.  Ditto with the above: more from a convenience/don't reinvent the wheel aspect, has anyone tried such a thing?