Bye.
The launcher may be more complicated than it needs to be, however getting it to do what it is designed to do is usually as easy as clicking a button. Why you had the problems you did is beyond myself and everyone else who has seen the threads.
The launcher is there because releasing patches individually is impractical and hamsters damn difficult to install. How would we be able to tell new comers they are out of date? We'd have to write an .exe for every minipatch. Some of these matches are tiny, not even 5 meg. What a waste of time and effort.
Perhaps you will make it back some time later. Good luck if you do attemt to try again in the future.
Servers are empty basically because most people who play 2142 don't care for mods. Or never hear of them. FS had a ton of bugs at release (which could have been handled by a launcher) which put alot of people off.
BlackIntel Game Leader
DUKE815: Teamwork's complicated. I've found that ramming a Lambda with a Y-wing at full boost is most effective.