I am trying to determine if it is feasible for OpenLayers v5 to handle incremental updates to KML files. The KML files I am working with are large but are dynamic and receive updates every so often. Instead of refreshing the entire KML file it would be preferable from a performance perspective to just load the updates. We were thinking of passing the updates using the field. Any help would be much appreciated!
If you included tags in angle brackets, they were likely lost from your question.
I'm guessing you were thinking of using the KML NetworkLinkControl and Update tags? If so, then OpenLayers would need to support NetworkLink, NetworkLinkControl, Update, and other associated KML tags. I don't see any reference to NetworkLInkControl in the OpenLayers documentation, so you're probably out of luck on that option, but I might not be looking in the right place.
Another way to do this, since OpenLayers does appear to support NetworkLink KMLs, might be to split up your data KML into a number of areas, combine them via a series of NetworkLinks, and only update the ones on your server which have changes.