How do I work with this engine without having to rebuild the whole thing all the time?

Development Programming & Scripting C++
21

That is indeed a very weird issue. A few things that I’ve run into in the past which might help you narrow it down:

  1. Building from the engine will invalidate most files built by VS. If you are, stop using the “Compile” button in the editor.
  2. Compiling while the editor is already open will recompile a ton of stuff as it thinks you’re hot reloading.

I know these are less than helpful, but usually there’s a specific set of circumstances that causes your binary files to get invalidated. You said that just re-opening your project via the .uproject file is causing this… Can you reproduce this with a clean project? Does anything inside the .uproject file change in-between these runs (check the .uproject with Notepad)?

Again, these are just shots in the dark but it IS a very strange issue after all.

23

If you have to make modifications to the engine ( note that this increases the amount of work for you - especially with engine updates - if possible, prefer try to just use a custom plugin ), then you are better off using an InstalledBuild

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest…uildReference/

A project created using the InstalledBuild is like a RocketBuild project.

Your module changes will not cause a recompile.

24

Here is possible solution: