I'm sure last time i tried ideamaker it only produced sliced files in it's own propriatary format.

have they changed that ?

As far as z-hop goes.
try not to use it. If your retraction settings are correct - you will never need to anyway.
But with any printer (deltas excluded) constantly moving the z-axis up and down, will always introduce errors.
It's one reason that a flat bed is better than using 'auto'level' to map a beds inconsistencies and constantly be moving up and down.

Deltas are exempot from this as the hotend move in all 3 dimensions as a matter of course.

The less often you move the gantry up and down the fewer chances there are to introduce incinsistencies into your prints.