As a bit of additional bonus information, I verified using the OnMountPak method that I am able to mount the pak file successfully. Removing the load attempt and just going with:
if (FCoreDelegates::OnMountPak.IsBound())
{
if (FCoreDelegates::OnMountPak.Execute(*pakPath, 0))
{
FPakFile* PakOutFile = nullptr;
const FPakEntry* pakEntry = PakPlatformFile->FindFileInPakFiles(TEXT("../../../PackageBuilder/Content/dronepackmesh.uasset"), &PakOutFile);
provides me with a valid FPakEntry (non null). “…/…/…/PackageBuilder/Content” was the location of the content in the new project I made just to create the package. This is also the MountPoint that is in the pak file loaded by OnMountPak.
Attempting to load using this known good file path is still non functional. Either through a direct StaticObjectLoad or a SynchronousLoad as above, both are unable to correctly find the asset.
How are the asset string references supposed to be generated here so that the loading system is able to use it? They don’t seem to just take a file path, like I would use to get the pakEntry.