Thanks Jamie, that solved it.
I build the entire project but I noticed the aep file was getting gigantic (105 mb).
The project is a Top 10 ranking. So every postion has its own composition. And all these 10 comps have the 167 flags hidden in them.
I guess there is the bottleneck.
Idea.
Have one compostion called ‘FLAGS’ with a timeline of 167 frames. All 167 flags in there are 1 frame length stagered over the timeline.
In the INPUT comp you select with the same text input but it referrences to a framenumber in the FLAGS comp. In the Output comp is the Flags comp with a timefreeze and through the input expression it goes to the matching flag? I guess somewhere the 3 letter flagname should alphabatticly match the framenumber?
Is that a plausible idea?

