How can I distribute a game project?

Hi all,

I work in a university that is teaching elements of game audio, using UE4. As an assessment, we are distributing a project in which students have to use the sound tools to implement complex and realistic sounds into the game.

We’ve found that distributing a project causes a HUGE load time on the relatively fast workstations in the uni. Load times on the order of 45 mins are common for the first time load. The second load of a project is bearable, if it’s by the same user on the same machine (I’ve tested this on my home machine, and a staff machine at the uni). However, if you change user, or try to load the project on a different machine, it takes forever again.

Is there a way to package the cache into the project folder itself to distribute it? The students are finding the process incredibly painful when they may only have an hour here and there to work on the project, and it takes 45 mins to load! Interestingly we didn’t have this trouble on a similar project last year, although I would hypothesize that the asset list is longer this year.

Thanks for any help you can give!