So, we have all these non-used units in hw2. Theoratically speaking, if there was a patch, does anyone have any good balancing ideas that would make use of the 'useless' ships in hw2?

I'd only make one patch: bring the vay collection rate up to that of hiig. I wouldn't recuce vaygr research costs though, cause in general their units are supperior to their hiig counterparts. Putting their ru collection on par with hiig would allow you to afford the higher researching costs too.

As far as units go, the only non strong units built (ie: not int/pulsar/ion/dd/bc) are the ones that are overpowered (mainly: flak/emp/lazer). Units like gunships/lance/minelayers/dff have decent powere imho, but they're all as stupid to build as bombers when the situation doesn't allow them to be built (ie: building bombers when enemy has tones of inties). Take a look at battlecry's 1.2 patch if you want to see units balanced better, he's done a good job overall, but i still need to get him to fix the vaygr collection rate (not exactly easy, see vay collect slow cause all their 'docking paths' are 5seconds longer than hiig docking paths, so u lose 5 seconds per collector per trip to unload ru. I believe this is just a developing mistake made by say two groups working on each race, and a lack of coordination on docking paths).

wtf? increasing vay col capability and vay is becoming so much better, you would end up going 5x pump (or 3x pump + bc) while upgrading... that is purely unbalancing imo. and vay can get emp much earlier and wtf is hig going to do with much more expensive res mod/emp research/dumber emp? and lasers will start to pop out faster and torp is gonna look pretty lame as well. they did a great job balancing 2 races that are very different. It's just in 1v1, vay tends to take disadvantage, coz they get better after mid game.

lance and dff are fine, just under used from people who think they don't exist.
otoh, gunship, minelayer, assault frigs and hypergate obviously lack a proper use, so they're good to be tuned.

simply put, making anti fighter on non-fighter class is just silly. (except for flaks when you can designate the fight spot) ints move so fast they can kill half cols in a patch till a gunship gets in range (or all of them for ass frigs) and once they get pulsor/missile/lasers, the vette slot filled with gunship is gonna just look so bad.

lol, well as far as i know, your about the only one that feels this way hid. -_- In my opinion vaygr is about 90-95% as good as hiig overall (same vay to hiig collecting % btw) and I do feel i play both races to their potential.... (My opinion is based off a lotta raw data, thought and consideration, and unbaised objectional experience. There's a lotta 'proof' i could post, but i really don't want to write out the 10page thesis on the matter thats floating in my brain. I'll just say thats my proffesional opinion and I stand firm in it. )

Also I personally think you play vaygr better than hiigaran (by say 5-10%). And that maybe this is why you currently think both races are indeed balanced.

If you ever played Vaygr with Hiig collectors, you'll see why making vay harvest as good as hiig is not a good idea. I think the races are actually balanced pretty well. Hiig vs Vaygr on shield is more of a map problem, try playing on hostilities, where you can use superior vay swarm to deny expansion points. IMO, we just need to create a modified shield map where the races are set and just give vay 2 more starting coll or 500 ru, or some combination of the two.

One of the biggest problems between the races is the superiority of vay EMP and swarm, which can be used to deny expansion points and limit harvesting. This will slow down getting caps and supercaps, which are the weak point for vay(the second biggest problem). Once the hiig capital ships are pushing forward, it's really hard for vay to slow them down and use the fact that shows up in the max fleet battles: vay ships are superior. On very large maps vay has almost no chance at all, using swarm is inefficient, and hiig has huge hyperspacing bonuses. Fixing all these issues can be difficult and will probably lead to both races being very much alike.

Here are some of my thoughts.
I think it'd be nice if the hyperspace gates became more useful. Either make them very tough so that they last longer, or very cheap to use so it's easy to replace. Also, I don't see why vay should pay more for hypering caps and supercaps, all of them except for dd can't use hypergates. Separating capital ship upgrades into two different categories - one for capital ships, one for supercapital ships - could be good too, but might make vay a bit too good with them, not sure about that one.
Gunship to me seems like a ship only useful in 1v1 against vay, where they can help dealing with better vay fighter squad limit. Hiig can get them fast enough after ints and cover them with torps. The problem with this is that there was no need do deal with better vay fighters, hiig gets fighters fast enough, and then just presents dd, which is too hard to stop. To make gunships more useful, give them another vette per squad, and make them faster than any vette out there by 40-50 at level 2.
Assault frig is another unit which I can only see useful in 1v1, particularly vay vs vay. They're more than enough to make fighters run away and are a good mobile fighter cover for bigger ships. They can be used if you build another rarely used unit - lance fighter - to offset taken fighter slots. This can make a good combination, provided that you can keep all these ships fighting at the same place, like a medium or small 1v1 map. One thing I really don't see a need for is the assault frig research - vay is slow enough getting frigs, why make it a requirement to research a ship that has such limited uses.
Lance fighter is pretty good as it is, but adding one more fighter per squad will make them a bit more useful. Also, it'd be good to increase their damage vs coll and subsystems to the same level as the ints.
Minelayers are not bad, but not really good enough to be used often. I think there can be two ways to fix them - either make them in the squad of 3(but they will still make 1 mine at a time per squad, not per vette), or remove the huge requirements necessary to get them and make them cheaper. In both cases mines need their tracking range increased, otherwise they're too easily avoided.

I also think the Vaygr CC needs a bit more armor. You can pop those babies way too fast.

if u go ass frigs in 1v1 vay vs vay, u're toast big time... lasers, gn... and no, u cant make missiles and go ass frig at same time and expect ru to last. and of course if both side max fighter/vette (lame way as a game), you would need hmf.

it just has no room whatsoever. if vay vs hig, you need infil and u need every last bit of ru to upgrade infil vs dd.
and in team games, you're expected to make vettes for team than go frigs unless u're supposed to mass hmf and couple anti-fighter could come in handy, but usually u're supposed to deal fighters with extra emp passed to team than these.

mine vettes are so hopeless either, 3 ints, in 3 seconds, it's toast. 2 pulsors/missiles, in 3 seconds it's toast. 1 torp, in 3 seconds it's toast. so... u at least need to cloak them... mixing within a cloak against dd/ions with dff cloaked as well, is only way u could possibly use. or u might be able to mass mines in base, so angle dd can be easily capped.

lances are pretty ok as is, quite useful already. but adding more power vs subsystem can be nice.

gunships are reserved for use by genesis only so, no, we don't touch them (tho, in reality, if they kill fighters faster, then it's all good)

hypergates, should at least lower the cost, no one wants to spend 4k to set one fragile crap when it can be busted in a matter of a few minutes after one time use showing where it is with dozen hyper sigs. really, gate is only useful at base... but hell, why spend 4k if it's only good for marine jump against angle dd...

So you really think 5% faster collection would make vay supperior to hiig overall?

Just an estimate, but i'd say hiig is played 90% and vay 10% durring skilled games. Its also well known that unless your doing massive research sharing, having any more than 1 vaygr on your team is taboo.

When you compair the two races, you gotta compair strict identical build up while considering that each race has got to be able to hold and protect his teritory all throughout the build up. In a 1v1 on any map, Vay just loses in the early game, the mid game, and wont win untill its fleet is maxed and mostly upgraded. As for dominating ru patches with vay swarm, getting hiig emp does the same job as vay - just without the extra perks (ie chasing shit with emp, u gotta hit a swarm head on). And cheap lv2 pulsar are gonna wipe un-upgraded/lv1 vay missles off the map.