What constitutes increased loading time from mods?

[Schadenfreude]

Hey there folks,

I love the game and especially using mods, but I was wondering what exactly constitutes to the greatest increase in loading times into a mission.

Is it any mod?
Is it mostly cosmetic mods?
Is the mod size the most important factor?

I am trying to gauge what would improve my loading times the most, I've tried singling out certain amounts of cosmetic items from specific mods (for instance mostly helmet), in the hope that this could help, but I am not really sure how much, or if this has any effect, since the mod file's size is the same, just that I singled out certain lines of code to slim the roster down.

Thanks for entertaining me.
Cheers

[Eggy]

Its the assets. The quality, size and optimization level.

Take the anarchys children stuff as a good example. A massive amount of content, all very high quality, profesional finish and we have to assume optimized for the engine so it has no impact.
Pick one of the larger gun mods for example where someone has ported loads of guns from another game. It will have large textures and models not quite perfect for this game so some conversion has to occur. This general happens on load when the stuff is needed.

The unreal engine is pretty good in that it only loads what is need, but with streaming tech will attempt to pre-load stuff.
You can see this in action in the customization screens for the troopers.
On a low spec machine you will see lag in the menu options (for example legs) as you scroll through your leg options and you move over the pieces in different mod packs.

You can also see it in action on some streams. Mr Odd has massive load times in his current playthrough thats heavily modded, so much so hes planning on overlaying other content while it loads. You can also occasionaly see alot of lag at the begining of the level when they jump out of the ship. This is cosmetics being loaded in.

With your specific example it would help if the mod authors split there content into smaller chunks, so as a user you could pick and choose what you wanted. However this is alot of work so understandably they dont do that. It was also clutter the workshop even more than it is.

I also have the same problem as you and quite often will try out a few new customization mods for a few missons and then decide that the visual improvements they offer are not worth the extra loading or lag.

[Schadenfreude]

@Eggy
Very comprehensive, I always enjoy learning about the things behind the scenes to get a better understanding, thanks for taking the time.

I am mostly interested in slimming down my loading times to get into a mission, I am not sure still if it's mostly due to cosmetics, you mentioned when the mission finished loading, cosmetics are loaded in during the Avenger Jump scene, so is it safe to assume cosmetics aren't the greatest perpetrator?

[Schadenfreude]

In other words, is the game loading/checking all the mods, and it's data, I have installed, or does it only load the necessarily mods' data, relevant to the mission that is about to load?

So let's a say, for the sake of argument, I have a mod that is 3GB big, it adds a ton of cosmetics, but my squad only uses a single cosmetic part, does it load the entire thing, or only pull from the relevant data. Thinking about how you phrased it I guess it would load the entire thing, eh?

[Eggy]

It will be scanning through that 3gb of data at some point in order to populate the menus and screens the assets could be used on, but when the level loads it will only be loading the models and textures used.

[Schadenfreude]

@Eggy
Alright, thank you for your help.

[Marcus]

the more mods the slower i have to say. i play with 275 mods on wotc, and do get slow down even between each soldier when i play - it is something you live with to get the game to play as i want it.Use a squad of 13 to start with.

[Schadenfreude]

@Marcus
Thanks for the response, but I've been trying to get a little more precise.

Sounds like you are suffering from a botched Config File problem. Try deleting your config file folder, located under My Games\XCOM2 War of the Chosen\XComGame.

You'll have to reassign your hotkeys, graphic options and mod setting, though.

You're also safer to get rid of your stuttering, if you are starting a new game in conjunction, also there is this thread, it helps a LOT with the Unreal engine problems universally:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/846960628563773260

Cheers