Thanks!! It's exciting to see the stuff actually work!
I'm building the abilities as skills, at least for now. I'm just starting to get comfortable with coding and how GUTS behaves, so I'm trying to keep it simple until I have a better grasp of everything.
My plan is to do the skills as built-in weaponry. The trees will be Ranged, Melee, and Augmentation - the third skill tree offering utility type abilities, representing modifications the mechanical man performs on himself. The skills revolve around dealing fire and electrical damage.
Right now, Melee is the tree that has me worried, because I want to do some things I'm not sure are possible - like "Internal Armblade Strike" - I'm hoping to add a sword laid across the character model's arm for the duration of the attack. (I'm hoping I can do that as a Unit Theme, since I've read they can attach to bones, but I haven't even tried melee skills yet - for now, I'm just focusing on the missiles since I've mostly figured out how they work.)
If anyone is interested, here's a link to a video of the skills in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbfcnUbtvOE&feature=youtu.be Bladed Disc Launcher still needs some work on the particle fx - same with the shoulder laser - but it's coming along pretty well, considering I have no background in coding or modding games!