Reduce redraws of scene for mostly static 3D game board
I'm new to Unity3d and I'm building a puzzle game that is 3D. The main board is a grid of game objects that is pretty much static. That is, until you interact with a game object and things start moving/animating/etc. On my iPhone 6, the Xcode profiler says I'm in the 66-85% CPU range. This range seems to be consistent regardless of what the game objects are doing.
I've taken some steps to (I think) reduce the CPU usage (i.e., cutting down shadow details, disabling scripts, reducing vertex complexity), but I think ultimately the best thing to do is not redraw the screen while the player is busy pondering their next move.
I'm wondering if there is a way to suppress redrawing a particular section of the screen until I "enable" it?
I was considering reducing the target frame rate after everything is done animating in an effort to keep things simple. However, I think several "things" depend on a regular update and futzing with that value over and over might make for a poor user experience?!