Will using Dummy Weapon/Item Actors save on resources?

Hi,

UE5 question, and working with BP.

Implementing an item and weapon system for my game where you can equip the weapons to holsters (hip, back etc) then equip them to your hands (swapping weapons etc).

Just wondering if it saves on resources using a dummy/prop weapon actor for the holstered weapons and gear; that is just an actor with a skeletal mesh that gets attached to the character and has some basic stored variables, but basically 0 functions etc vs actually spawning the weapon actor class that has all the functions etc but isn’t interactable until it’s unholstered.

I assumed having dummy/prop actors would save on resources not having to load the functions etc for all the weapons the players and AI would have holstered. But at the same time I wasn’t sure if that’s even how unreal works?

Both require being stored in arrays… and the prop actors would be deleted and real weapon actor spawned when equipped to hands vs detaching and attaching to sockets.

The holstered weapons are in an inventory and players can pickup new items and change the holstered weapons at anytime too (therefore loading at runtime vs loading during play doesn’t come into it).

Apologies if this a really obvious and/or stupid question.

Cheers,

Probably the main thing that would save on resources is soft class references.

The tuut is a bit out of date, but the concept applies.

UPDATE: This does work in 5 :slight_smile:

However, once you’ve loaded the weapons ( and the references are realized ), loading a dummy weapon just adds to the resources used :slight_smile: