Xenopax- Optimize 4.0

TL:DNR version:  this changes a bunch of files in MW5, and improves gameplay performance a lot.

If you'd like to support the mod, please consider buying my silly Indie game, Nuke Survivors.

What Does This Thing Really Do?

People say, "a picture is worth 1000 words", so:

When I started working on this yesterday, I realized that explaining what this does to non-game-dev people- really, for the 5% of people who really care (or don't want to download a huge file like this unless it's amazing) would be hard.

Basically... PGI left Physics Volumes (AKA "hitboxes") on... every single weapon on every single 'mech.  This is non-visual stuff players can't see.  Physics volumes need to get checked by things moving through their space (like, say, projectiles or other 'mechs) and they're pretty expensive to check, per frame, on stuff that moves.

More to the point, these aren't at all vital.  They don't affect visuals or anything the player sees or does, but they bog the engine down.  The way hits on 'mechs are dealt with is through the mech's main hitbox. Hits on cannon barrels aren't really valid or important in this game, even if they did anything useful at all.  I tested, and weapons on a given body part take damage just like normal, etc. if the 'mech loses Critical Hits.

So, basically, this is something that eats up a fair amount of CPU... it doesn't need to be in the files, but it's in the files.

There's also a mind-boggling amount of wasted space and memory and CPU with the way weapons are put onto 'mechs, in general.  Like, enough that I was like, "who in the heck does this and surely Upper Management is aware of the cost overruns this represents". 

It's ... eh ... there's a reason why this game runs a little slow.  There other things like that I found, like having per-polygon collision testing on a bunch of stuff that probably doesn't need it, but this was the "low-hanging fruit" and frankly, changes of this scope are kind of un-fun to build, so I thought I'd start with this.

Anyhow, that's about it.  I'll put up pictures of what I found tomorrow, when I have sleep.  For people really struggling with FPS, this may help a bit.  For