I was wondering if there was a layman way for the USD ROP to do the same thing the Component builder does when saving assets, that is an option to Localize External Non-USD Files.

The workflow with the Component builder is fine but sometimes for smaller scenes where no components are being built and the workflow is more like OBJ to LOPs it would be a huge plus to have that to make scenes more portable without jumping through hoops.

I realize that there might be a way to already do this but I'm still learning, any help would be appreciate it.

it can, its in output processing, Copy All Assets to Referencing Layer Directory

https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/nodes/out/usd.html [www.sidefx.com]