Clothes animation, Modular Character, The Finals - HELP! (skeletal mesh-merge)

Hi I’m creating a FPS multiplayer battleroyale game

I have created a character in blender and it’s weightpainted and rigged in blender and it’s a modular character.

But I’m unsure how to do it properly, ex. like “The Finals”.

  1. I have a full body mesh, and a modular option (torso, legs, arms and face)

  2. If my character wear ex. a shirt or pants, should I replace the torso_mesh with the shirt_mesh, or should I add it on top of the characters torso?

  3. Should I animate the clothes and bake it for each anim(idle, reload etc.)inside blender, or just weightpaint and then re-taget the clothes_meshes to the animations inside UE?

and finally, after creating the modular character in my game menu, would it be possible to add a skeletal-mesh merger that runs afterwards, so in-game the character is one single mesh instead of multiple meshes (I noticed that The Finals have like 20 meshes for its modular character), I’m only gonna need like 5-8 meshes.