I've discovered that some of the material has the option to be loaded as needed. I'm not certain what affect making that change might make, or how much of a difference there will be, but I'm looking into it.
The pole-pinching on the optimized planets also might be avoidable. I believe Stress has used a different form of UV mapping while maintaining the same textures. I haven't tested a ton, but I believe the planet textures can be reduced in size without any significant loss of detail, all while maintaining the original UV map and avoiding the pole pinch. This is also something I'm looking into. If nothing else, we simply need new textures that match the spherical UV maps.
We also still have 500 more entity files than stock Entrenchment. I know we have 2 additional races, but I think it's still too many. At some point I'll have to go through line by line to figure out what we're using and what we're not. Anything that isn't being used and is still in the manifest is being loaded for no purpose.
Another option is simply to remove Skyboxes from the mod completely. It's a big help when they're turned off, so removing the unrealistic space colors might be a logical next step if it's necessary.
I'm also thinking that all fighters should be removed. We see a couple in in some DS9 episodes and some on the Scimitar in Nemesis, but they certainly aren't standard compliment for most starships of any major power. I think Star Trek should keep to large ship battles, and the fighter-centric wars should remain in the realm of Star Wars. Of course, it also cuts down on memory usage by HUGE amounts.
I'm also betting (it's been a good month or two since anyone's done any significant work on the mod) that we haven't adjusted any of our textures to the lowest bit amount possible. That's a huge space saver, as well.
Anyway, my point is that we have numerous options. Most team members are taking a break by working on various other mods at the moment, but we'll get everything implemented at some point over the summer with any luck.
