hey there, im not the best at gamestudio, but im certanly not the worst.
did you try checking your game code to see how many functions are runing at the same time? too many running at the same time can cause hanging, hit f11 in game to see a list of everything, "fnc" should be the number of functions.

also ive heard a good way to animate weapons/armor, etc with models is to animate it WITH the model, as in put your armor on your guy, animate him, then sae your armor as a separate model. im a bit unsure as to the details of this strategy, but perhaps someone else could put a word in?

i hope i was able to help