Hunters Run

Ah, interesting.

node trimesh Object33
  parent 201TEL14
  position 5.75107 10.0839 12.91
  orientation 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
  diffuse 1.0 1.0 1.0
  ambient 1.0 1.0 1.0
  transparencyhint 0
  animateuv 0
  uvdirectionx 0.0
  uvdirectiony 0.0
  uvjitter 0.0
  uvjitterspeed 0.0
  lightmapped 0
  rotatetexture 0
  m_bIsBackgroundGeometry 0
  shadow 1
  beaming 0
  render 1
  dirt_enabled 0
  dirt_texture 1
  dirt_worldspace 1
  hologram_donotdraw 0
  tangentspace 0
  inv_count 0
  bitmap TEL_HJk
  verts 0
  faces 0
endnode

KMax refuses to export a trimesh with no faces, but interestingly MDLEdit will compile an ASCII with a trimesh with 0 verts/faces just fine.

Kotorblender also throws an error which is how I found it.

I guess that's down to both Max and Blender dealing with a mesh object that has some ancillary trimesh data, so a mesh with no geometry can't exist. Whereas the model format presumably has a trimesh as a data type in and of itself that contains mesh data, which can be zero values.