Changelog:

• v1.0: Release

Sup.
The illustrious CrazyMLC got me interested in concatenating script files in RTEs to make them load faster, so I made a little python script to do so. In my testing I found that load times are primarily held back by the actual load screen rendering itself, but the script does help a bit. You can check my data below and try it out yourself.



You will need at most the standard python distribution. I programmed it in 3.6 but I believe it should work fine in 2.7 as well, I don't use anything specific to either version as far as I'm aware. Run python from the command line to use it.



Generally it looks like the following


Then you can move Index.ini to Index.ini.old (or delete it entirely) and rename Index.ini.new to Index.ini

I used DSTech.rte as my guinea pig, and then expanded to the normal RTEs included with the game. It works fine on all of them except when IncludeFile directives are inside block comments. The script does not handle block comments in any special way, so it will blindly attempt to follow any IncludeFile directives inside them. In particular, Missions.rte has a block-commented-out section in Missions.rte/Scenes.ini that includes some debug inis that do not exist, so the script will fall over.



In my testing, however, loading screen draw time was the biggest time sink. On my machine, loading from a 1TB 7200RPM hard drive, normal loading time at 1080p was around 12 seconds as shown in the table above. Changing the resolution Cortex drew at from 1080p to 640x480 improved load times to around 1.5-2s, too fast for me to accurately measure to 0.1s.

Here's a version that'll work just with a click, no python installation required.
It works differently than Duh102's version and I've seen load times almost halved when used.

The .zip only needs to be extracted into the same folder as Cortex Command, the same way you might with a .rte.

Download Here.
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compile.exe - Compiles the code of each mod into one file with no comments or whitespace, decreasing load time. Can run the game after it finishes.
uncompile.exe - Conveniently uncompiles each mod, restoring them to their original state. Can run the game after it finishes.
benchmarker.exe - Will accurately measure the time it takes to load your current mods, and save a log file to the benchmarks subfolder. Use this to find out how much time you're saving by compiling! (Runs 5 times, and includes an average load time in the log)
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compile.exe is intelligent and only does its thing when it has to; it'll skip up-to-date, already compiled mods. This means you can use it as a sort of launcher for the game, and it'll automatically make sure you're loading as fast as possible. Feel free to replace your Cortex Command shortcut with a shortcut to this exe.

Additionally, there's a file called CompileSettings.ini in the folder. This can be used to control aspects of compile.exe and uncompile.exe:

Python source files included.

Full release with all the trimmings on steam and mod releases section pending me remaining interested in this project. Let me know if you find any bugs.
If the compiler manages to break any of the mods somehow, delete the broken mod and reextract it from the steam workshop folder or have CC redownload it. If it's a base game rte, then try verifying the install through steam.
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known issues: gdi.rte somehow manages to ruin everything. (????) and eventhorizon.rte breaks the comment handling code. All other mods I've tested seem to work fine, including every mod on the steam workshop. If you have these mods, or if any other mod breaks the compiler, add them to the blacklist.

With every mod on the steam workshop, my load times at 640x480 went from 43 seconds uncompiled to 32 seconds compiled. Each mod varies in how many lines of code it has, and how many files that code is in, and thus benefit to varying degrees from being compiled. Most large faction mods have their load times greatly improved by the compiler, while smaller mods blunt the effect.

For example, with just the base game and a couple faction mods (untitled, wh40k, saw) my load times at 640x480 went from 12 seconds to 7 seconds.

Higher resolutions definitely do increase load times, as Duh102 mentioned, because of flaws in CC's rendering. For me, load times at 1920x1080 are roughly tripled for both uncompiled and compiled.

i have no damn clue what this is but i love y'all for still making ♥♥♥♥ for this game