Here is Goofy67's reply:
Okay, let's have a closer look on how it works:
Let's presume there is only one hangar in the whole game, the well known basic- ( or standard-) hangar. This one is located in spaces/hangar_v2. The original hangar in packed in /res/packages/hangar_v2.pkg. You may open PKGs with WinRar or 7-Zip. The client finds this hangar because the PKG is defined in paths.xml.
HangMan scans all spaces-folders, not only in /res_mods/0.9.7, but also in every PKG. If it finds a hangar, it is added to the hangarlist.
So we have now one hangar in this list: spaces/hangar_v2
Now we add a hangar_defs-file, we call it basic-hangar.xml. The tag <spacepath> in this XML is essential, otherwise the manager doesn't know, with 'map' has to be loaded. We need to set:
<spacepath> spaces/hangar_v2 </spacepath>
On client-restart HangMan now finds 2 hangars:
spaces/hangar_v2
hangar_defs/basic-hangar.xml
Both are basically the same, but you can make changes in XML-file like other music and ambiente-sound, and of course change the tank-position. (I've done that with those tank-toy-hangars...)
Now you may add spaces/hangar_v2 to the exclusionlist, so on next client-start HangMan ignores this one and deletes it from the hangarlist. spaces/hangar_v2 is still physically there, but you can not select it by buttons or keys.
(Attention: If spaces/hangar_v2 is set in <hangarpath> in HangMan.xml, this hangar will be displayed on startup, despite it is in exclusionlist or not, but on hangar-change by button or key you cannot go back.)
To answer your question in short: Yes, you may set 'spaces/xyz'-hangars to exclusionlist, hangar_defs which use 'spaces/xyz' will still work.