Automatic Ability Use

Description
This mod will check all squads for abilities that can be used and automatically uses them. The player can still manually trigger the abilities, and the AI will use abilities in its own special way, in addition to this mod triggering them automatically otherwise.

It bothers me that so much attention to detail is required to bring minimal effectiveness to combat. It's my opinion that troops should do their utmost to wreak destruction on valid targets without waiting for the general to tell them to do so. It's good to have the ability to micromanage available, but it shouldn't be required.

With this mod you will never have squads on the other side of the map dying with unused abilities when you're not paying attention. The abilities will be used when within effective range, with greater precision and coordination than could be achieved by most players.

All effort was made to avoid any AI-like behavior. This mod will not check for the effectiveness of particular abilities against different targets (e.g. Tank Zappa), or appropriateness in a given situation (e.g. Orbital Bombardment against friendlies). However, some basic filtering was required to avoid frivolous abilities triggering:

The same squad may not use multiple abilities consecutively; a different squad somewhere must use an ability first. This should not present a problem in large battles, where all squads are using abilities in fairly rapid succession, but will also prevent a powerful character from unloading in a small skirmish.

A valid target must have at least one-third of the health of the attacker before abilities can be triggered. This threshold can be adjusted by editing the AutoAbilities.scar file and changing the following from the default:
health_bias = 3.0
While debugging, there were several times when I wondered why my squad's abilities weren't triggering, in some pretty hairy situations. Then after the smoke clears and I haven't lost a single unit or used any abilities, I realize that this criteria is working out well, and it's that my squad is b'dass.

Using this mod leads to some glorious battles as all squads are triggering grenades, magic, and buffing. It also makes the Imperial Guard Assassin extremely fun as he triggers his Assassinate ability automatically when it would lead to a shot.