anticipate the inevitable network failures that accompany being physically
  disconnected from the network, and adjust it's behavior accordingly.

  It is more than simply understanding that m2 cannot go and check for the
  latest version of some snapshot artifact. If m2 is offline, SCM operations
  cannot succeed; no artifact downloads can take place, regardless of whether

 their source trees set up in the same way as their colleagues.

 here's what I do currently in the netbeans part of the mavenide project to
 find the relevant subprojects/sibling projects. I check if the user has
 defined the maven.multiproject.includes property in any of his properties
 files for the current project. if yes. then I'm able to find projects that
 can be offered to be opened together with the current project.