Fashtas

I want to use an ability tree style system, it all looks straight forward but I am unsure if I should be using Ability Trees or Research Trees. They seem to have similar functionality, but I saw a suggestion elsewhere that maybe Research Tress were the new sparkly way of doing things?

Only thing I wanted to do specially was as the player buys their way through two different trees, they gain or lose points depending on the tree (gained for one tree, lost for another) which affected their leaning towards either of the two different things (for example either more magical or more melee)

That seemed easy enough to do via a Game Variable and "Finish Variable Changes" in either tree system

gamingislove

Research trees have more functionality, e.g. optionally needing some time to research new stuff. They're also used for different things, e.g. getting new items, etc.

Other than that, they're working pretty much the same, so yeah, you can use any of them :)
Gaining or losing points should be doable in both.

Fashtas

Thanks!

Going to stick with Ability Trees just to save me from trying to remember where I put them in 6 months time.

Got some Status Effects on Auto watching the leaning value on the player combatant which setting up things move physical damage if more melee attributes are taken or more magical damage if more magical skills are taken etc. Looks ok

Just working on adding or removing leaning points when abilities are learned or forgotten

Seems you can do it with Status Effects as well (auto add +1 lean if ability known, auto remove if not) but that requires 1 Status Effect per Ability... Ok I guess, seems to be one way to do it without code trapping learning/forget methods and adjusting the variable there.

Not sure if there is a large CPU hit with too many status effects. I've got a few already, mana regen, other regen, auto applying Status points if player meets certain criteria.. etc