Why do plugins designed for a blueprint projects need a compiler to package?

[ClockworkOcean]

I have various marketplace plugins. As far as I know, Epic’s intention is that precompiled plugins should package seamlessly with the project, but this very rarely seems to be the case. After all the binaries are part of the download.

I have to blow 10Gs of hard drive space just to have Visual Studio sitting there doing nothing. Because when it comes to build time, as far as I can see, VS doesn’t compile anything, it just writes a config file ( target.cs ).

Does anyone have any pointers on this? How to get projects that use plugins to package without needing VS?

Thanks

[ClockworkOcean]

@EntrpriseCustomr

This has been asked more times than how-to-cast, but haven’t seen a single solution. Does that mean its not possible, IDK, maybe someone on Discord knows… But it sure kills the myth of Blueprint-only projects or making a game in BP only… When you add that to the risk of relying on Plugins and the odds that creators get bored and leave the Marketplace, Plugins are a real PITA… You can’t even package a project using Epic’s own built-in Plugs, such as Apex, WTF?

I saw something a while ago, where someone was thanking… it might have been Rama… ( or Rama thanking someone ) for suggesting add X to the plugin, which meant it would package without a compiler. But I have no chance of finding that.

I don’t even think VS is doing any linking, it just seems to fix a config file somewhere. Would be nice to know :-/