So i am getting the baseline rules for character building down for the steam punk supplement to my Age Past game.  Everything is coming fine, but I hot a roadblock as it pertains to technomancy.

Tecnomancers have a psionic like ability that allows them to interact with machines.  I have a list going of around 35 individual abilities.

What I am having trouble with is trying to determine how to get those abilities to the player.  I have thought that one of the five schemes might work the best:

1. spell system:  a player could purchase technomancy groups like one purchases spells in the main Age Past book.  Then they could spend points to enhance those chosen schools as they level up.  The problem is that there are 14 spell schools and over 150 spells in Age Past and I only have around 40 technomancy spells which makes separating out in groups difficult.  There would only be 3 groups:
- designers:  those who use existing material to make powerful and temporary machines
- controllers:  those who control machines remotely and can meld with machines
- enforcers: those who buff, heal,and protect machines, plus directly attack with technomancy

2. suites:  players buy the technomancy spells in groups that are broken out.  I was thinking that I could make groups of 6 individual spells, and the technomancer could spend points to buy suites.  As the technomancer progresses they have 4 ranks of suites, with the more powerful ones opening up as the character attains more levels.  It would be easier to make these suites and would define the character more as a certain type of technomancer based on the suited chosen.  But it breaks from option 1 which is already an established mechanic, and only allows the player to get new technomancer spells at 4 intervals over play.

3. a la carte:  players can buy individual technomantic spells and as they gain level they can spend more for higher level spells.  The problem is that I can't figure how to control the player form only buying the best of the best.  The idea is the character has to practice the easier stuff to learn the harder stuff.

4. variable:  make the technomancy spells have variable power.  This means the character can buy a spell once but then put different amount of power into it to get enhanced results.  This is the most complex for the player to track and the most nebulous for the GM to control as there would be lots of gray areas.  But all healing spells could be one ability for example, instead of healing 1-2-3-4.

5. list (similar to suites):  have a long list broken into 4 ranks.  Each rank purchased the character can choose so many of the spells.  This would similar to how sorcerers and bard choose spells in Pathfinder.  But I feel player could min/max too easily and bypass cool non-combat based abilities to stack the combat ones.

Any ideas would be appreciated, I'm pretty stumped at this point.  My game is in sig if you want to see how spells are bought.  But essentially you pay a one time fee to learn a group of spells, then those spells count as skills which can be bought up at any time.  As they are bought up the character has access to higher level spells.

thanks,
Jeff

3. a la carte:  players can buy individual technomantic spells and as they gain level they can spend more for higher level spells.  The problem is that I can't figure how to control the player form only buying the best of the best.  The idea is the character has to practice the easier stuff to learn the harder stuff.

thanks for the input, i know you have a recent Age Past Incian PDF, so you have a decent idea of how spells work in the main book.

Currently I have been focused on getting the steam armor and tanks customization together so that players can be a pilot or tank commander and customize their personal vehicle.  I also have started to work on the steam cyborg rules so that those who want to have a tank lower body can do so.

The good news is that doing this stuff helps me to determine the power needed when making the technomancy spells.  Actually they are called patterns.

thanks!  Ill look into doing it this way!
Jeff