R.E.A.R.M. -alpha 0.0.3c

[Pouk]

Thank you.
Anyway, transfering the HS window issue to an ability has one serious problem: It can't be controlled, it's in a ship parameters and it can be just one way or another and would be glad if i could finally solve it for good. (I have some idea, which would replace a big problem with some significantly smaller, but that's it)

[tadamir]

Downloading now!

Gonna make for a long, boring, rainy afternoon at work till I can get home and try this out.

Cheers again for your work so far Pouk!

[Pouk]

ok

[MacModder]

0.0.3 is very nice. I like the new hods, they manage to keep vanilla feel with a new look! Drones are basically an extension of the fighter class- and their hod looks just enough like a fighter to honor the close kinship while being unmistakable.

That said, there are some serious errors in this mod- the number one being a number of "$2512"s and similiar patterns- always a $ and four numbers. These occur on every new option in the menu, including the main menu and the unit cap choices, as well as every (well, almost every) new unit, including artillery frigates, assault corvettes and cloak fighters. Interestingly, supercarriers were unaffected. I suspect an error in the string files- numbers around $2500 and $8000 seem to be common.

While I was playing the Vaygr, I noticed that the mine traps I'd been curious about were mysteriously absent from the build menu- is that an effect of the unit cap level I was on? (It was one of the missing strings)

My first game was as the Hiigarans. It went extremely well, a contrast to my Vaygr game. Crucial to victory was a group of Cloaked Bombers I was using to steadily destroy a would-be flanking maneuver by an enemy carrier. But then- I watched the missiles hit. Nothing. Well, the health bar went down, but the missiles vanished before impact. Aren't they supposed to have an impact FX like the Hiigaran and Vaygr vanilla torpedoes do?

So far, nothing that really affects gameplay- just asthetics. And I'm still puzzled by the new button on the main menu.

Kay, enough CGI stars, I'm going to go look at some real ones now.

[ajlsunrise]

part of the $#### errors are his attempts at localizing things (i believe...)

[KeyBored]

Arent $ symbols like variables, in some programming languages?

Where are these dollar thingys?

[Homdax]

Hokay...
I can't believe I missed this thread. Too much RL I guess.

Pouk, excellent work. Will try this ASAP.

[Dim@]

The $ symbols are used in strings to indicate a localisation ID. Since the game can be translated into other languages, it is not right to write the exact name for an objects in its scripts. Instead of something like "Interceptor", the scripts contain something like "$2010", and then, in English.big, there is a *.dat file, which contains, somewhere inside, the line:

2010    Interceptor

Then, when the game runs, it uses "Interceptor". To translate the game, you only need to change these *.dat files, and release it with the different English.big, rather than having to delve into the game code.

If a localisation ID is not defined, than it is displayed as is. Whether those errors are because Pouk made a mistake with some of them, or just hasn't gotten to localising yet, we may never know...

[KeyBored]

So absically theres a big file with this

$0001 Interceptor
$0002 bomber
$0003 assualt corvette
$0004 Assualt frigate

and you link the names to the $---- thingys so pouks missed something somewhere?

Why not just name the ships in the ship file? Is that possible BTW?, oh HW2 shold be arriving today or tommoroow

[Pouk]

That's bad, that's really bad... I can't really think very well right now, because I've just woke up after a 16 hours long sleep (which I really needed)... but are you sure you have the

-mod rearm0.0.3.big -locale english

in your shortcut? the " -locale english" is pretty important to see the names of the new units and research. But it's not probably this case, it would look different I guess. I know this happend to me once, but I can't remember right now when exactly, give me some time to get trully awake and then I'll know.

Cloaked bomber bombs have almost the straight line, if it's bad I'll change it, but remember, when I was talking about the cloaked bomber with much stronger bombs then usual, I've got pretty strong feedback against it, this is the result of it.

What do you mean by dissapear? The Mine Traps can't dissapear.
-is anything else in the build menu? I mean probes, minedrone etc.?
-did you research it?
-did you already had 3 or five drone minelayers built? They share the same unitcap, because I didn't want people to have too many minetraps, it's actually a drone.

I'm sorry that your first experience was so bad, but those things wasn't supposed to happen, I've tested it here and it works perfectly, but until now, I didn't get any feedback from anyone else.


EDIT:
Bad news.
Now I know what it is, but I have no idea how to fix it.
Anyway, download this thing , unpack it and put it in your Data folder.

I was trying to solve it in this thread and I actually thought I've solved it. But no.

I'm going to tell you what has happend:
-First I was trying to make an english.big file out of the extracted english.big, but it never worked and I still don't know why (more in the thread above).
-Then I've read somewhere that the language belong to the Locale folder, I've put it in the Locale folder and it worked. So I've continued believing everything is fine.
-I've packed the .big file out of it, place it in the data folder, I could change languages, it was good, so I've uploaded it.
-Then you've said it doesn't work
-And now I know why. The Locale folder have to stay in the data folder in an unpacked state. I didn't know my game was reading from the folder itself, not from the mod .big file. When I've deleted the Locale folder, I've got no text with new units and I couldn't change the language. I couldn't find it before, because I had all the folders of an unpacked mod in the data folder for testing, so I couldn't know that my game was reading from the folder and not from the .big.
-Now I have to find another way to do it, but I can't see any...

Anyway, download the Locale folder and you'll get the text.

[MacModder]

The missing FX for cloak missiles isn't important, don't worry about it.

Anyway, download the Locale folder and you'll get the text.

Uh- my OSX version of HW2 doesn't have a section labeled Locale.
What if that's a windows version? I wouldn't know until I downloaded it. I don't have time to try that right now, probably won't until later in the week. Busy day today.

Mine traps are gone from the build menu. The researches come with pictures even when I couldn't read them; all were identifiable as something else. There was no sign of a mine trap in the build menu; usually when something is researchable the ship is simply shown grayed out. Nothing. I was playing with unit caps as low as they could go (a new feature I love!), could that be the problem? Like I said, it'll be a while before I'm able to replay the mod. But I'm looking forward to it.

[Pouk]

Missile FX, I've realised now you're talknig also about FX, I guess I were still sleeping before. Sure it is imoprtant, I need to look at it.

No, you have to put "Locale" into your Data folder, the same place where you have the mod rearm0.0.3.big. (I have no idea how does anything look like in Mac)

Mine traps can be build only in the artillery frigate, after you build the Probe production and research them. Are you sure you were looking there?

You like the lowest unicaps? I thought I'll be almost the only one who find it interresting to play with so little number of units.

[KeyBored]

Hehe, good night out eh Pouk! I dont understand ANY of this!

[lance]

I had tried the locale file. The Name of the ships is in the game now. Not sure bout the drone/mine yet. just went in game and checked the names. Gonna be out now. Good luck.

[Pouk]

Not all names are there yet. I just had to release it, I've promised it will be ready in december.
Obviously I didn't make it in december, but I sure had one of the first release of the 2010.

[TonyOneBlairoby]

Keybored.

Imagine, you are french modder, and you name you ship "gros vaisseau de la mort qui tue".

What if a stranger test the mod, he just trow a ship named "af#h&ufq*s-fbq&fb#gq" at battle xD.

It is better to make the mod with "variable name" instead of just a name in the ship.
So the "name variable" change and show the name of the ship in your just language by changing a languages files instead of redoing the entire mod changing each ship name (2 text files for just 1 or 2 lines different).

[MatthCoFreak]

I am a French modder and I always use English names for naming ships. It's much easier given that you have plenty of examples of English-based ship naming conventions in multiple video games... And that I hate bad translations

[Pouk]

I thought it was a good idea and that it would be easy.
but knowing that I can't pack the language together with mod .big made me question it.
Some people who tryed to install it don't know what the .rar is (true story) and I can't make a working .big from the language files from some reason, so putting something else into the Data folder just to changing the language seems like a stupid thing now.

I still want to do the languages, but if I won't find a normal way to do it, I'll give up on them

Did anyone else tryed to unpack an english.big, make a .big again out of it (even without any change) and tryed to load his language out of the new english.big? Am I the only one who can't start the game when he tryes to use the new one?

How would you solve the language issue?

[Hangman4358]

I don't think having to DL the mod .big and a local folder for languages is too bad really. If someone cant download a .rar and extract the .big and a folder out of them then I doubt they really would be installing mods. If you wanted, you could always make a full installer when you make the first non alpha release. That way people would not have to bother with unzipping anything.

[MacModder]

Mine traps can be built only in the artillery frigate, after you build the Probe production and research them. Are you sure you were looking there? You like the lowest unitcaps? I thought I'll be almost the only one who find it interesting to play with so little number of units.

Artillery Frigates. Didn't think to look there.
Fewer units = more strategy with the ones you have. For example, I tried to go without strike-craft protection. Guess how that went!

I appreciate you using the .Big format. Too many mods use the .exe format, which is Windows only.

[Pouk]

Hangman4358: OK.
And the installer is a nice idea, I'll have to find out how to make one.

MacModder: There'll always be the .big version.
And yeah, the ultra low-cap is surprisingly entertaining.

[TonyOneBlairoby]

Me too, i usually put english names into my .ships. But it is not a real mode, i am just doing random modding.

But after, we could understand that a guy that etablished a full mod project can expect to do translation for his every players.
Everybody don't practice english verywell, and even a kinda translation could be at least a little + to the overall mod.

After, it is true that make nice translation is not easy.
Like an animator need to have some anatomy knoweldge, a translator need to know some stuff about the language in wich it will get translated.
The best translation is not necesarry the direct same idea translated, in fonction of culture, a fixed concept could be attached to different ideas cultures to cultures.
A thing representing predator could be linked to wolf naming in some country, and panther or jagguar related in others places.

After it depend if the modder want to link a global concept per ship that would be the same for everybody, or if he want his players to discover his mod like he himself see it.

A real translation work is generaly quite hard work if you really want it well done, if you want all customers around the world get the message very like you wanted to transmit it when making the movie/clip/or whatever else.

But i don't you Pouk to understand that i ask you to kill yourself working on translation xD, okay xD. You have done a good/hard work so far, i don't want you to stun yourself with such kind of task ^^ .

[Pouk]

I don't want to do translations to the languages I don't understand, it would be pointless and embarrassing.
I expect someone who speaks his language to sacrifice some of his precious time to make his own translation and send it back to me ...
(I know some meanings may be lost this way, but I believe if I would make the translations personally, it would be a lot worse.)
...And someone else to thoroughly check my crappy english texts.

I want it to have it as good as it can be. Everyone can see how "good" my english is, so it's obvious that my text will need corrections.
(No, but really. Some people may be carefull with their criticism, but to make it good I need you to point out every wrong thing I don't know about. And this stands for everything, not just for the language.
Although this version is still WIP in more aspects, but the next bigger release will finish all of it and I'll be just adding new ships together with their icons, descriptions and research, so it will be "finished" all the time. Then I'll need more feedback, because I don't actually play it that much, so I can't see it.)

[MacModder]

Just tried the artillery frigates and minetraps for the first time.

I'm assuming the artillery Frigates were using cluster missiles, (the new locale folder didn't work, even when I added it to the Terminal "string") which I've never used before. I noticed that several missiles were arcing away from their targets into the "great blue yonder"... another bug? hope not.

I wish I had known that the mine traps were one shot. Out of curiosity, why are they built on the AF instead of in the platform section?

Like the new graphics for the probe facility (in the build menu).
The new destroyable missile icon, not so much.

One last thing. Pause and zoom-in, out functions failed. It may be my computer's start-up disk being full, but....

Wishing you best of luck solving the language barrier. But here's a question- since there are only two languages that the locale folder covers (czech and english) why not release two downloads, pure English (like 0.0.2) and pure Czech? Since there are two, not four or five.
I need to hit the hay, big day tomorrow. God bless you...

[Pouk]

Artillery frigates were using cluster missiles.
What's the Terminal "string"?
If those missiles were flying away very very fast, then it's practically something like a bug. The minetraps are using three missiles during their flight, the second are really fast and they are used to spread out, so they're not flying streight to the target from the beginning, but make a sphere and then target the enemy. If the enemy dies after the first one is launched, but before the second missile appear, the missiles won't initiate the third stage when they targets the enemy, but just fly away. And because they're so fast, it does what it does. It should be solvevable somehow, probably by making the second missiles to be able to swap the targets, or simply by slowing them down.

You're right, I guess I actually didn't tell anyone that they're one shot, but they would become too powerfull if they weren't. They're built on the AF because I don't wan't people to spam them too much, it can't imagine to play against Vaygr then.

The little arrow? So tell me what would you use instead? There's no way that I will be using the stupid Mine icon for them. And the Mine icon is saing that it's mine (with the spikes, or heading to all directions, but you know it's a mine). This thing is telling you that it flies forward and it's a missile. But really, show me what would you use, I'm curious.

Another later, I'm out of time and I can actually be late already.

[KeyBored]

Hangman and Pouk, Why not use an SVN? Ive got many programs and kept them up to date easily with an SVN.

Pouk, Theres been snow...no post . These things like No Strikecraft sound interesting. is it like game modes, like on CoD where you have, TDM, SD, HQ and that lot, so you would have deathmatch, No harvesting, and stuff?

[Pouk]

Continuation:

What functions failed?

Languages: I can have any number more than just english, or english only (and forewer, because I wouldn't change it back after I've changed it from the english in the first place). If you have english only, you can have names right in the .ship files, no problem. If you have two languages or ten, it's the case I have, the names are in the folder.
But if there were .big files in two languages (in case I imagine I'll somehow do all the extra unnecessary work it requires), the files wouldn't be the same and if I'm right, those .big files wouldn't be compatible in a multiplayer.
Anyway, I would actually like to have more than just two, I would like at least a german language, because there are lot of german talking people around (around HW2, around my country and lot of tallented people here are Germans.)


Homdax: There's never too much of RL.


KeyBored: SVN. You mean that people would use a programm to download mod updates?

I've totally forget where I was talking about the game modes and no Strikecrafts, but I have some ideas (not particullary CTF or something, but I have to admit it would be spectacular). Thing is, that I don't really want to talk about them, because I know that a (not small) part of them is unreal, but I still don't know which ones.


Anyway, I have a question for you people about the scripting which are actually not about scripting at all, but I'll ask it when it won't be at the end of the long boring text.

[MacModder]

The mine traps were fifteen minutes gone when I noticed the missiles; they were presumably from my artillery.

How about a crosshair? After all, it is indicating that they are targetable.

[Pouk]

MacModder: I'll fix it.
And you'll get the crosshair, that's really better.

EDIT: Like this?

[MacModder]

That's better than what I was thinking!

By the way, look in the upper right of that screenshot. There are two missiles arcing away similar to the ones I saw; albeit kilometers closer to the battlefield.

I appreciate your efforts

[MelvinVM]

I finally see a mod that uses existing homeworld stuff in a original, fun and impressive way.
One of the very good mods ive seen around here.

[Pouk]

MacModder: I'll check all the times that missiles have to live and lower them more to the HW2 standards, without affecting the function of it. Or I'll let them die after they have no target as other missiles do (which is better idea), but I'll fix it. (In regular HW2 you can't see such things, because the missiles are defused when the target is destroyed.)

MelvinVM: Thank you, really.

[tadamir]

Hello Pouk!

First off I must apologize, RL has kept me from posting here about your awesome mod sooner than I would have liked.

I don't really know what you would like people testing this to report, so I'm just going to mention a few observations.

Well, first observation is that Installation was easy, only issue I had was when the mod was extracted to my game folder I had to go in and 'cut & paste it UP a folder', that was all, simple.

I have only had time to play one game so far, as Vaygr against an Easy Hiig on Shield.

I wanted to Lab test as much as I could so I smashed the cpu until he had nothing but a smoking MS and then just built up a max fleet, testing various combinations of builds on the Frigates (which are freaking awesome!), and looking closely at everything.
I very much like being able to 'swap out' the modules 'on the fly', to suit whatever tactical situation may arise.

I tested whether the new Resource Controllers with 4 drop off points work, and they do, I have ss with the Controller loaded up with 4 Collectors, pathing has no issues I could see with that.

I saw the '$2056' etc on most of the new things and simply assumed that, as this is a work in progress, that would be sorted out in a later release and ignored it.
I thought maybe you weren't sure what you wanted to call these craft in English and the $7605's were simple Placeholders.
Reading the latest few posts I see that it is an issue but not a big one, don't stress about it, this IS an alpha eh!

I did notice the Long Range Missiles (one at least) go shooting off into the wild orange yonder, so can confirm there may be an issue there. (It was kinda cool though, added a bit of "wtf, that Targeting Officer is getting demoted!/things don't always go according to plan in War" feel to the engagement. Random errors=reality).

I liked the 'arrow' symbol for the missiles, it was pretty obvious and clear, I think the 'crosshairs' symbol is too large and not fitting within the HW universe, just my opinion.

I liked the Armour Modules on the Carriers, I'm assuming they aren't textured properly yet. Concerning these armour modules, would you consider changing the menu name for them to Portside Armour and Starboard Armour? The names you have for them are rather long.

On that note, I would be more than willing to Proof Read any English texts you want checked!

There was more but it's hard to concentrate at work.

Over all though, very impressed.
This mod is already very good and can only get better.
(And I haven't even looked at the Hiigs yet!)

[MacModder]

Tadamir, you do realize that the reason that symbol is so large is because Pouk is zoomed in point blank? Even a fighter's symbol looks huge at that range.

Glad to see someone else who likes the intensity of Shield.

[tadamir]

Hi MacModder, yup the green ones in the distance are more representative of how that would look, and after some consideration I'm warming to the crosshairs a bit more.

Here's my stray missile (top RH corner):
[IMG][/IMG]


I do like Shield, just this particular game wasn't intense as I made the bad guy Easy, felt kinda bad about it, poor Hiig never had a chance.

[Pouk]

tadamir: What if I simplify the crosshair, just four lines, nothing else, it may be much more fitting into the elementary overlay family (BTW, that's why I've choosed the arrow before, it's a very simple symbol).

What if I made some of other missiles attackable, but leave the arrow for them.

No, I guess no, but I'll try the simple crosshair right now.

The missile flying away is not a bug, it's a feature No, but don't worry, I'll let them die after they lose their targets, they would normally dissapear, but I've changed that before (if I remember well), to see if the LRM can hit anything without guiding.

And if you've played Vaygr, you've seen the better half of the mod. Hiigarans have only the Supercarrier, Cloaked fighters, EMP corvettes and then only refineries and turrets.

EDIT:

Now what do you think. They're not so detailed, but I keep them (unless more people like arrows, but this is good), because they do fit much more. Some people doesn't realise that they sometimes have to sacrifice details in Homeworld modding (in any aspect, not just overlays) to make it blend into the game.

Anyway, I forget to tell you the most important:
In the post no. 360 there is the download link to language hotfix, you may also download on moddb rearm homepage. Place it in your Data folder and you should get the text. It's also open (it's a folder, not .big), so people can do anything they want with the text. I would be very glad if you could check it and correct it.

2th EDIT:
I've make a new .big for you (all of you who doesn't like the missiles flying in a straight line after their target is dead)
This .big is still labelled 0.0.3 (who cares, it's still an alpha) and for those who want to have a crosshair overlay on their missiles. (the LRM are with the arrow, not because it will be this way, it won't, but because you can compare the two)

Let me know if you'll ever see the straight or fast missiles again.

[KeyBored]

Pouk, how about a rhomus/diamond, but with cross hairs, ill show you what i mean in a sec.

[Pouk]

In this case, the simple crosshair turned out to be better, also because it keeps the situation clear. It's different enought to point out there's a danger, but simple enough to fit and to avoid any confusions. It's really 50% better than the previous one, so I don't want to complicate it again. (the arrows are also clear and easily recognizable, but they're not as good looking as the crosshair)

EDIT:
news:

-the arrow icon of the missiles was changed to a crosshair
-appearing and disappearing distances of a missile tactical overlays reworked, (for example Cluster Missile submunition and Mine Trap mines are visible only from a normal distance)
-missiles doesn't continue flying in a straight line after their target is destroyed anymore
-the hit FX of a Hiigaran Cloaked Bomber changed to be much more visible

feel free to find me more bugs.

[KeyBored]

Nevermind, photobucket is being a pain

[MelvinVM]

www.filesmelt.com is a easy fast host without any registering or ads, very useful to upload images for forums in a few seconds, although the server refreshes sometimes.

[Pouk]

I have a request:
Is there a kind person who would send me the german equivalent of an english.big from your Data folder? The german.big, deutsch.big or whatever name it has.
Thanks

[Djodar]

hmmm i can do that if you want pouk.

Download

uploaded it for you.

[KeyBored]

Hehe, thanks melvin, but its not photobucket really, its my 3g dongle only picking up GPRS where i live.....it painfull modding....ANYTHING.

All the snow is holding up the Post...so no hw2

Pouk, the blue UI is a bit crappy, how about a "brushed steel" UI, maybe you can set it ingame? Oh and Missile trails SUCK, so does the sprite on the end of the missile, someones gotta make new ones, add a bit of smoke or something.

[Pouk]

Djodar: Thank you Djodar. You've helped me again.

KeyBored: Yes, I wanted another UI styles once, I had it all planned, all the colors, even two sets of ship icons, but only if it can be optional in game or at least some other way.
Replacing the old one without option to choose between the old and new ones is not going to happen.
(BTW, Slipstream has brushed steel, I don't want to copy them)

[tadamir]

The simplified Crosshairs is perfect I think, yes, that looks good.

I'll try the language fix you mentioned Pouk, thank you.
I appreciate your efforts at trying to make your mod multi-lingual, it is that level of attention to detail that drew me to this mod.

Another thing I noticed was that the Vaygr Carrier, when fully upgraded with both Armour Modules, had the same HP.
Am I misunderstanding how the armour works? I imagined having both armour modules built would simply bump the carriers health up significantly, and would go back to normal once the armour is destroyed? (ok, I'm sure I read somewhere how it was supposed to work, *prepares to re-read whole thread*).

I'm assuming that these new module systems are a WIP too, they all seem to be named "Fighter Facility" when highlighted.

Perhaps you could make a list of all known issues, what is still WIP, what is complete and what might be changed significantly, so that numpties like me stop posting useless information trying to help?

I'm obviously an amateur at testing mods, what is reportable and what isn't?

[Pouk]

Excelent idea with known issues and WIP. I just have to process it, give me a time.

Anyway, armor is total WIP. It has no proper name, no description, no original texture and even no mapping. Plus it doesn't do what is supposed to do (exactly as you've mentioned, the HP boost or hit cover -absorb percent of hits of the whole ship). All of this it's suppose to have, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't work at all. It physically cover the part of the ship, so at least something. All of this is because I haven't look at it yet.

But things I can remember right now:
Serious known bugs:
-Ion fire (and other) to the supercarrier may end up under its belly in an absolutely empty space. This make supercarrier invincible against another supercarrier or hgn BC.
-Artilerry frigate with the Probe production subsystem tends to fly very close to its targets (about 3-5km), even it has LRM (I'll find out why)
WIP:
-hgn defence drone
-armor of all kind
Missing texts:
-drone minelayer
-supercarrier
-I can't remember what else, but you'll see and I won't miss any of this
Missing research:
-adv. assault frigate, adv. heavy missile frigate
-all vgr corvettes
-and some else
Other:
-I still have no idea how to make AI build things, which he have to research first, that's why AI won't use artillery frigate anymore (even it can use all of the three missiles), because the frigate has new research to unlock it.
-I don't know how to make AI build new subsystems

There's a big chance that I've missed something, but most of other things should be in a category of bugs I don't know about.

[TonyOneBlairoby]

For the armor, it is simple.
They have there own hitbox, they are put on the surface on the ship, you can set the armor class you want, so you can make specialised armor with low hp but that absorb much more than the ship itself after it loose his armor.

Also, by putting several armor plate on the ship, you can manage to destroy it faster by making your fleet mainly damaging the same area, so the hull get destroyed withtout the need of destroyed all the armors.

You can make armor hit box in front of vital ship system, like production module, engine, ect . . . It could cover a part of enemy firing angles.


After, maybe it would need to be other thing that just a ship with 1 000 000 armor module slot :P, so you lvlup you ship to max and send it to battle like in vanilla hw2.
There should be only a few amount of armor weared at a time.
Prefer make the whole ship tank more, or just protect susbsytem, that kind of stuff.

[Pouk]

The hitbox idea isn't bad, but two things:
-I'll make only as many armor subsystems, as many subsystem slots the ship has, not more.
-I don't want to entirelly cover the ship from any damage while having armor, I need a way to split the damage between the armor and ship or to boost the ship HP (there's a tutorial for it, I just need to test it, what exactly does it do when the armor is down, etc.)

[tadamir]

Aha, thanks Pouk, that cleared up a few things!

I didn't want you to get frustrated at having to repeat too much stuff about what works and what is WIP etc.

I think everyone understands that things like this take time, don't sweat it.
Personally I'd rather wait longer for a completed mod 'when it's done' to rushing it and you burning out and losing interest, as seems to have happened to a few other promising HW2 mods.

[Pouk]

I know your philosophy about completed and unfinished mods and I understand it very well. That's also why I've told you to rather wait for the 0.0.3 than installing 0.0.2. You can take this version as a preview and leave it, then start with any later version you want.
For your information, about 0.0.5 I'll have (I hope) all planned units evenly filled in a corvette, frigate, supercarrier (maybe fighter) class, so it will be practically balanced. Then I'll be building units from that point evenly for the both sides into the same categories, so it will be normally playable as a whole thing since that. And you may jump in at any point at that time, if you'll eventually decide to play it again before 1.0.