For the spline, if the bezier curve handles drive you nuts go to vert mode, select them all, right click and set them to smooth. If you set them to corner they come out sharp. It makes them a little easier to work with. You can also add knots by turning on refine and clicking on the spline. You can also delete knots and it…
That's kind of the point of making high poly rope or cable so you can bake it down. You could have a coil of rope on the deck of the ship that gets baked to a cone or some other shape that's not so easy to apply a tile rope texture too. Baking it twice could have some undesired results also? If you're concerned about…