Nature of the beast, alright. You could start by fixing up the mesh. As it is it looks pretty messy. You should definitely add more geo if this is going to be relatively close viewing and noticeable in-engine. Also, you could use FWVN and trade off the extra texture for more triangles. The mesh will be instanced anyway.…
Why do you say the mesh looks messy? It's basically the high poly without the extra support edges. I think you guys are right though. I'm going to check whether LOD might be a good way to fix this issue. Making 2-3 versions of this model and then switch in between on distance. The might just not be a magic fix for this…