My guess on your first problem is that this mod requires you to take a racial area, such as Rebellion or Empire (it should be a safe guess for a Star Wars mod). Taking them would be compulsary to have hulls, components... specific for the race in question.
I cannot answer to your second question; invalid index isn't an error I know of. I am downloading the mod and will have a look, if only for curiosity sake; I have always had an interest in making things go awry. AI construction errors happen when the AI isn't made to play the mod, and they shouldn't prevent you from playing the mod.
Edit: I have no problems when using the mod here with the Modlauncher. My Version is 1.91, and I have downloaded the mod from
here. Is it the same for you? If so, check your components.txt file for a double empty line. When you made your modificaiton in this file, you may have added such a break of two lines or more.
[ July 19, 2004, 16:33: Message edited by: Alneyan ]