Hi,

This is how it runs for me without any modifications to the scene:

 but is there a way to optimize the playback even further?

I belive that the Basic Concepts tutorial will help you understand how Ornatrix hair data flows in the modifier stack, so you will be able to optimize the stack for faster rendering and simulation. This one as well. 

I coudn't find where to change the hair point count, that option only seems to be available in the Guides From Mesh modifier. Or is this what the Details modifier is for?

Yes. Use the Details modifier to set the amount of strand points for each strand. Check out the docs here to learn how to use it. 

Enabling Collide With Base Mesh causes C4D to freeze even with low hair count on a default sphere

I cannot reproduce this crash(See the gif below). I tried with the latest nightly build of Ornatrix. Please update it if you haven't and try it again:

Also, your base mesh is also set a collision mesh in the Object Tab -> Collision Meshes. This is not necesary, just enable Collide With Base Mesh. 

Collisions with other objects still causes hair clipping even with the physics Substep and Iterations at maximum values and all meshes being designated in the Collision Meshes tab. 

See the Collision Tolerance parameter in Moov Physics docs. This is what you are looking for in this case instead of increasing the Substep Count or Iteration Count parameters. 

Enabling Collide With Hair causes hair to ignore all other objects even when they are designated as collision meshes. 

I cannot reproduce this either. Update Ornatrix and try again. 

Hair simulation won't respond to C4D Force objects (E.g. Wind).

Ornatrix is not compatible with C4D's default Force objects. So far Maxon has not exposed those to the C4D SDK for plugin developers. As a solution(for Wind only), we provide a script that will help you create easy wind hair animation. This tutorial is Ornatrix for Maya but you can follow the exact same steps in C4D to add wind to the simulation. 

So far, my workaround has been to put the distribution mesh into the Collision Meshes tab and to use the Push Away From Surface modifier, although that isn't perfect either.

Ah. Now I see why you did that. 

Jeordanis Figuereo (Product Designer. EPHERE Inc.)

- Enabling base mesh collision still causes crashing or 0.1 fps in viewport (this is why in my scene, I put the base mesh into the collisions tab to circumvent this).

Can you provide a scene where this crash happens? The one that you posted here doesn't have that problem. I can't reproduce it there. 

- Caching physics with base mesh collision enabled (if it doesn't crash) shows a result as if no collisions were ever enabled (strands fall right through the mesh).

I cached the simulation in your scene using the Animation Cache. I didn't get any crash and the collision seems to be working as expected:

- Collsion Tolerance still doesn't seem to affect anything.

Same as above. As shown in the gif the guides are colliding with the spheres even with the default value.

- The Wind Simulator script doesn't work at all. I checked the Maya tutorial on Youtube, and I seem to be doing everything correctly, so I don't know whats wrong there.

Finally, I tested the HairSimulatorWind script, as shown below it is working as expected:

Do you have another version of C4D that you can try? Just to discard that those issues that you are having are related to a specific version. 

Jeordanis Figuereo (Product Designer. EPHERE Inc.)