At any point down the line..

Maybe, hopefully, Uber will open-source the PA code/engine in a few years time, in much the same manner as id software would release each Quake engine as open source code years after release.

Licensing it in the meantime might well happen, it's a very unique asset and designed with modification in mind.

Once we get access to servers, hell, you could program you entirely original and new game off the uber engine and pay a licence to publish your new product.

That was the stated aim, a new engine so that they can have more business for others who want to develop for it.

Why just RTS? Outland Games, which is an iOS mobile game developed by Uber, uses the same engine as PA. Though a very early version of it.

This prospect is the only thing I am actually really liking about PA and the only thing that makes me support it financially - continually so. PA as an engine is awesome. As a game, well, it is not to my taste.

I've been thinking this more and more lately. It's a fantastic engine, you can tell a lot of work, effort, and passion has been put into it and the fact that it supports modding makes it bloody awesome. Back in alpha I was amazed that there were so many mods available for it. Hooray for modders! The g ame is definitely to my taste though, but I often think of potential improvements and bits of polish here and there whilst playing.

But I wish they'd gone down the route, which so few seem to go down these days but seems to be really necessary (look at Minecraft), of building the engine and the mod API, and then developing their game using their own mod API. I really believe this is the best way, but I think because it delays the development of the /game/, it is not ideal for a Kickstarter (arguably), where you want a game up and running soon, in alpha, to deliver on your promise.

But still. That way you get a very powerful mod API, because it has to be!

Anyway, I still have high hopes for the game. A big, feature-packed release that is well publicised etc, could bring lots more players, and I dearly hope they extend the current modding capabilities (I have mods I want to make, but can't right now).

Yes, but there is a difference between a black-box engine, and also having access to the source. Throughout Uber has talked about a black-box system, with them implementing hooks as and when there's demand for it. Access to the source hasn't been discussed yet afaik.