How do I save multiple pieces of data, without copying/pasting my code and renaming slightly?

Unity Engine
1

Okay. I got my save/load system working. My issue is, is there a better way for me to be doing this?

Lets say I’m saving a bunch of data. All of this data is tied to FACTION_A.

Right now, being as lost as I am, I’m simply copying pasting all of the code used to save FACTION_A’s data, and slightly renaming it to match FACTION_B. Its a lot of copy pasting and I intend to have more factions.

is there perhaps a technique, something along the lines of “For every faction… save XYZ” ?

Is this something a “dictionary” or “list” can help me with? I’ve never used either one.

2

I think we’d need to see the system you have in place currently to really understand what you’re thinking of.

1 Like
3

^this, JSP can be a good start to data/program structures though. could probably have a int and a byte array in a class, then just serialise, deserialise depending on the int? but without seeing anything, stab in the dark.

4

First place to start is to create a Faction class that stores all the information relevant to a single faction. Have you done this step yet? It sounds like maybe you have a “FactionA” class and are thinking about making a “FactionB” class. That would be the wrong approach. Just create a general “Faction” class and give it properties such as “FactionName” and whatever else you need.

After that, any code that processes a faction should be able to accept any Faction object you give it. Then it is easy to handle multiple factions in your game.

1 Like
5

Thank you all for your help. My crummy looking code is a bit of an embarrassment but.

public void SaveGame()
    {
        Debug.Log(">> I'M GOING TO SAVE SOME DATA!" + "\n");

        FriendLvl = XPScript.Level;
        FriendCurrentXP = ((int)XPScript.XP);
        FriendMaxXP = ((int)XPScript.MaxXP);


        myFile.Add("Friendlvl", FriendLvl);
        myFile.Add("FriendCurrentXP", FriendCurrentXP);
        myFile.Add("FriendMaxXP", FriendMaxXP);

        myFile.Save();
    }

This works all fine and dandy when I’m saving/loading a single “friend” but in the spirit of “wanting to do it properly” I came here.

Someone suggested I try to implement the data into a serializable scriptable object but that made me even more lost.

6

Not so much scriptable object (at least for savings) but rather serialize it with JSON.

Look into JSON, work through some tutorials… basically its just a way to turn data into a string, and back into the original data, and that’s the essence of savegames.

While we’re at it, here’s a few more of my mad ramblings about loading/saving:

Load/Save steps:

https://discussions.unity.com/t/799896/4

Don’t use the binary formatter/serializer: it is insecure, it cannot be made secure, and it makes debugging very difficult, plus it actually will NOT prevent people from modifying your save data on their computers.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/binaryformatter-security-guide