CTL-L is not the only way clusters get created.
If you merge meshes together it will create clusters with the different mesh names.
You can get rid of the clusters without affecting the merged mesh model by just going into the tree for the new mesh to where is says clusters and delete them.

In your pictures you can see multiple clusters named Polygon1 etc... These can break the .msh file/export. Usually you can just delete them as FragMe! stated but sometimes they contain you UV data and then it will break the .msh/export. Deleting those will delete your UVs, too, though.
The pandemic exporter works alright with clusters(atleast with 'basic' ones), until now it was the only possibility to export more advanced models with weights/vertex colors etc(data which needs clusters) so there aren't any concerning SWBF2.
Depending on how many polygons connect to one vertex 10x can happen. It'd be unusual though.
Did you try Freeze and Freeze all transforms yet?

ANDEWEGET wrote:In your pictures you can see multiple clusters named Polygon1 etc... These can break the .msh file/export. Usually you can just delete them as FragMe! stated but sometimes they contain you UV data and then it will break the .msh/export. Deleting those will delete your UVs, too, though.

Yeah, whenever I delete the clusters it wipes the UVing also, so I haven't done that yet.

ANDEWEGET wrote:Did you try Freeze and Freeze all transforms yet?

Yup. Selected everything and froze all transforms..... As I said, the model gets ingame just fine; its just the textures I'm having difficulty with - hopefully your next version will help me with this.

Actually just tried this, took a number of UV and textured meshes and merged them all together.
Then I went in and deleted all the clusters, and all the UVs were still there although the textures were not. This is not really a problem if you are using 1 texture as you can just reapply it by going to Render/Get/Texture/Image Say yes to the popup and choose your texture.

Now what you cannot delete from under the Clusters heading is Texture_Coordinates_AUTO doing so will blow away all the UV information (tested this too)

If you are merging meshes and they use different textures then you should not delete the clusters or you will loose all your material information.

lucasfart wrote:Oops! Thanks for correcting me on that FragMe! Whenever I deleted the clusters, the textures disappeared. I just assumed that meant the UV's were gone too, which is kinda stupid since I left the Texture_Coordinates_AUTO cluster alone.

Another question - how would I go about making a similar UV layout to the BF2 gun textures, which mirrors the texture along the axis.

the easiest way to do that is delete the symmetrical faces on one side, UV the other side and then symmetrize these polygons.