Best practice for adding specific attributes to an object but not all of them

Questions & Answers
1

Hi there,

I already know of one solution to my issue but I was wondering what the “best Unity method” would be.

In this scenario, lets say that we have 3 resources: Food, Wood, Research.

I would like to add a “capacity” attribute to Food and Wood, but not Research, to represent physical storage.

When creating the resources, I do it like this currently:

public List<Resource> resources;


resourceNames = new[] {"Food", "Wood", "Research"};
Unlocked = new[] {true, true, true};

for (int i = 0; i < data.NumResource; i++) {
      Resource Resource = Instantiate(resourcePrefab, resourcePanel);
      Resource.name = resourceNames*;*

Resource.ID = i;
if (!Unlocked*) {*
Resource.gameObject.SetActive(false);
}
resources.Add(Resource);
}
The most “Unity-like” method I can think of is to create a new component with a script called Capacity, and then attach it to Food and Wood specifically.
Otherwise, I could simply create a new array for Capacity and set it to be [500, 500, -1] and have capacity ignored for components with -1.
From a design standpoint, could someone provide a better idea or explain how one prevails over the other?

2

Hey,

I had a similar requirement to control how many bullets different types of magazine could take. My game had a crazy amount of weapons.
Instead of C# array, I used C# Dictionary. Might be worth looking into:

3

Hello,
I would try a class and a derived class.
Base class:
using UnityEngine;

/// <summary>
/// Base class : research, etc.
/// </summary>
public class Collectable
{
    public string name;
    public GameObject prefab;
    public Vector3 position;
    public Quaternion rotation;
	public GameObject reference;

	// Default constructor.
	public Collectable ()
	{
		name = "Default";
		prefab = null;
		position = Vector3.zero;
		rotation = Quaternion.identity;		
	}

	// Full constructor.
	public Collectable (string _name, GameObject _prefab, Vector3 _position, Quaternion _rotation)
	{
		name = _name;
		prefab = _prefab;
		position = _position;
		rotation = _rotation;

		reference = GameObject.Instantiate (_prefab, position, rotation);
	}
}

Derived class:

using UnityEngine;

/// <summary>
/// Derived class : wood, iron, gold, etc.
/// </summary>
public class Resource : Collectable
{
    public int capacity = 500;

	public Resource (string _name, GameObject _prefab, Vector3 _position, Quaternion _rotation, int _capacity)
	{		
		name = _name;
		prefab = _prefab;
		position = _position;
		rotation = _rotation;
		capacity = _capacity;

		reference = GameObject.Instantiate (_prefab, position, rotation);
	}
}

Usage script:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

/// <summary>
/// Usage script : attached to an empty.
/// </summary>
public class ResourceManager : MonoBehaviour
{
	public List<Collectable> resources;
	public GameObject prefabForest;
	public GameObject prefabBooks;

	private void Start ()
	{
		resources = new List<Collectable> ();

		Resource forest = new Resource ("wood", prefabForest, Vector3.zero, Quaternion.identity, 2000);
		resources.Add (forest);

		Collectable booksStack = new Collectable ("research", prefabBooks, new Vector3 (5	, 0, 5), Quaternion.identity);
		resources.Add (booksStack);

		foreach (Collectable item in resources)
		{
			Debug.Log ($"{item.name}");
		}
	}
}