The problem of mods are not speed, but goals. If you set the wrong goals it will slow you down. I can admit however, that even with the right goals it is already slow.
My advice is: have 2 mods - one personal and one team based with small tasks that makes you exchange knowledge and point of views.
But this is (an interesting) matter for a new thread. We could move all these last posts (from gthompso1) into another thread.
I’ll do it!
You can’t move all the people’s posts. Can moderators split a thread into two?
You could quote all of them and it would probably take less time. But anyway @Kitty_Jo, could you help?
What radical advice!
Pouk should know, and probably does know, but I have no trouble reemphasizing it… that if he for any reason ever wanted to take this advice and be part of a team mod, HW@ would quite joyfully assimilate him 
And I for one definitely speak for the joy of team mods. Any amount of work that gets done by someone else on the team brings you closer to your collective objective with no effort on your part, and that can be a grand feeling. Plus you have the other people to be happy about the work you are getting done. Sure, there’s always the community that is glad to see progress, but showing your teammates progress is kind of a different satisfaction. 
And like Chimas said, exchanging knowledge and points of views is a very fun feature of teamwork.
In general that is true, but it is probably least true here of any mod I know of… Pouk has constrained himself to some of the most reasonable and realistic goals of any mod author I can recall.
This advice comes from my own experience with 2 years in pre-GBX’s HWR MOD. In a team there’s a lot of activities that are not CODE or ART focused (but they probably are CODE or ART related). You need 2 MODs because when you get tired, bad mood or uncreative, you have something else to do. When you don’t have a second one, you simply “disappear”.
My next post will be in the next thread. Let us give a day for @Kitty_Jo and then we decide wether or not to make a new thread. I think SPEED&GOALS are important to discuss because there’s a lot of ppl slow-modding out of our awareness.
The history is a graveyard of mods with too big ambitions. But not to counter you, but to divide it further, there are two types of large scale mods.
One that is very likely to die is a large scale mod made by a beginner modder. We all had our grand dreams when we started, far overreaching our skills and in general being way out of touch with reality and with the estimate of the actual time things take.
Then there are large scale mods of the “veteran” modders. Often a group of people. If these die, I think that would be due to larger forces, like people dropping off or miscommunication.
Well if anything, I would like to make this mod both personal and a team mod. Personal it already is, but whenever I try to gather more people, no one’s really interested.
I myself feel it’s important to keep your focus, don’t divide it to too many projects, because you’ll get less done. And that’s not a universal advice, for other people that will be the exact opposite, they’ll draw their sense of accomplishment from those other team mods. But your personal mod will suffer.
And since I’m alone for all this for since what looks to be someday before 17th Sep 09, I consider myself rather self motivated and focused. So to me personally, it makes more sense to stay on track. I’d say everyone has to make that decision for himself, to find what makes more sense for his nature.
And the HW@ would be my number one choice! No question about it, I’m a big fan. I promised a help, but in general I want to stay on track with this one.
Well I’m a lone wolf. And I can’t get other people to join. So that’ll probably never happen to me. But REARM does have a dev group and that’s very helpful to me. I am self sufficient, so technically I could work in a vacuum to keep myself going, keep motivated. But even people to throw ideas at, they’re throwing ideas back at you, someone to have long discussions (and arguments 
) is very helpful and supportive. Even when you are the only one actually doing something. :
I hope. The old R.E.A.R.M. never died officially, but was feature paralyzed to the point you might pronounce it dead. That’s the main reason I cut my goals down to the very core of what I want to accomplish.
Realistic goals are truly the most important thing your mod can have. If you won’t have that, your mod simply won’t get to exist.
So would you like me to hold off on splitting the posts up? When youre ready just let me know which comment to start with and what youd like the title of said new thread to be.
I think this one started it?
http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/mod-rearm-v2-wip-thread/127672/397?u=pouk
Name? ehm… We’ll get back to you. I don’t think I’ll be the one who’ll come up with a good name.
Edit:
It’s not about large scale mods, it’s not truly about the speed of development either. I think the core of this discussion are traps of mod development and chances of being finished.
You can split it already. I suggest a broader title like “Mod development efficiency” so ppl can exploit many issues. Then , it will start the discussion with speed and goals.
edit: you can split on Kragle’s post appointed by Pouk, that’s good enough.
Ok, I think I moved all the relevant posts. If i missed one or moved one that shouldn’t have been, just give me a holler.
So what were you going to say now that we’ve relocated?
Some thoughts from me: On any solo project, my mind wanders around to other things pretty freely. Having a team with regular input and discussion from others helps bring my attention back to the project frequently, and get things done. I’ve had a lot of ideas for smaller mods or mods for different games, but completion on them is rare, while HW:@ keeps chugging along.
Having a team does have overhead of course. Everyone has their own lives, their own schedules, and so forth, and nobody is getting paid. Sometimes you end up waiting for someone else to finish something, or just be online for a conversation about something. I’m a big proponent for keeping busy making things, so having a side project or two makes some sense, but for me those are things besides homeworld mods. And they don’t(usually) involve big modeling efforts, which are a considerable time sink.
(I was writing this while others replied, so their aguments where not taken into account).
The personal mod, actually can be a mod where you propose and/or lead it. While the team mod is a group of ppl that you won’t matter much if you lose some decisions and things go on into another direction. But I think a mod team has to stablish some goals, so ppl won’t get upset or offended when new opportunities arrive.
Below, I’m proposing a body of concepts. I’ll provide an example later.
Being part of a team, goals are divided in 2 types:
Being part of a team, my support goals are:
1 - ETA for the first interesting release?;
2 - Can we discuss and stablish the minimal accepted content before starting to work?;
3 - Can we chop the schedule to make partial releases like screenshots, balance tests (with place holders), teasers, etc?;
4 - Can we focus on new in-game assets and game rules or game modes for the first release?;
5 - Can we make a single stylized PDF (or even TXT) with some features and credits of all the things found inside that build?
I.E.
1 - A complete mod can take years, but something made by a team,must be more agile;
2 - The problem is not 10 ships taking an year, but becoming 20;
3 - “We’re not dead” marketing;
4 - that means, we won’t play with NIS, animatics, voiceovers, soundtracks before there is something playable and releaseable and we will focus on player base feedbacks and replayability (this is more a personal choice);
5 - Answering why did you create things or fantasizing it is appreciated by the players and game’s enthusiasts (like HW1’s H&TB)
Have to do something here, be back later…
Another factor of how grand scale your mod has is: A total conversion or ship addition. …Or a gameplay rules mod.
having only started modding homeworld at all in the past week or two, ive probobly bitten off a hell of alot more than i can chew.
so far i have 4 mostly working models ingame(horribly textured, i plan on redoing the uvs at a later date), carrier/mothership, frigate , corvette and destroyer
Im aiming for an entire custom race to start with, so probobly another 20 or so ships to sort out. If i can get all that working satisfactorily, ill probobly try and turn it into a TC race by race
Well we’re always thrilled to see new people try their hand at modding, no matter their ambitions! Welcome!
Cheers, ive done mods for other games before, but first forray into homeworld modding 
Do you have screenshots of your previous mods, so we can take a look at the art style?
not anymore idt, been through a few harddrive failures and a couple of computer changes and sadly lost alot of my old stuff, most of what i did was for X3, as for the style, the stuff i did for X3 was all Battlefleet gothic ships, more of a moddler than a texturer