Using scriptable objects in the other half of the game project

[noorajlyakeen]

hello,
can someone explain to me when to use scriptable objects and when not to?
you see im trying to creat a game where the player is a doctor that needs to treat patients in order to gain money, then use the mony to either buy a new office or hire someone or buy new equipment or upgrade an equipment…each equipment has a quality and this quality affects the difficulty of the mini games related to treating patients (patients data is stored using DB)…so my question is should I use scriptable objects or not? and why? I’ve already finished like 35-40% of the game…and now someone is telling me to use the scriptable objects…

[Kurt-Dekker]

@noorajlyakeen

and now someone is telling me to use the scriptable objects…

And … ? Do you need ScriptableObjects?

If you don’t know, don’t use them. This is software engineering, not a cocktail party.

Here’s how to reason about and use them:

ScriptableObject usage in RPGs:

ScriptableObjects for an RPG with multiple units in your team

The most important concept about ScriptableObjects (SOs) is that they are custom-shaped blobs of data that you can edit inside the Unity inspector. The serialized values inside a SO map directly to that created asset on disk, the instance of the SO. When your game runs, it needs some data. One way to get that data is to hard-code it in the code. That is bad because when you change it, you need to change code. That’s why we have things like a SO to configure existing unchanging shipped code. W…

Creating lookup tables that can be assigned in the inspector.

This looks like a job tailor made for ScriptableObjects! ScriptableObjects are basically structured blobs of predefined data to help you create content for your game. For instance if I had a ScriptableObject called Weapon, it might have these properties: name detailed name description damage toughness weight what it looks like in the inventory what model it uses in game what animations the player uses to swing it I would create many of these Weapons, each one a file on disk (also called an…

Usage as a shared common data container:

Better Data with Scriptable Objects in Unity! (Tutorial)

[noorajlyakeen]

i wasn’t planning on using SOs since im reading and storing data on a DB…its a collage project and on of my teammates wants to use them…so i dont wanna argue if its best to use them instead of DB.

so we use SO for game saving? i understand its better to use for unity inspector for value tuning and for game settings…but im not really sure if its the right thing for my game…sry im new to SO iv never really used them​:sweat_smile:

[Kurt-Dekker]

@noorajlyakeen

i understand its better to use for unity inspector for value tuning and for game settings…but im not really sure if its the right thing for my game…

That’s exactly what ScriptableObjects are for, as noted in the above links.

Use ScriptableObjects to author game data easily in the editor.

If you prefer to author your game data in a “DB,” whatever form that takes, that’s up to you. Just make VERY sure that this so-called “DB” plays nice with Unity, as many of them don’t, or they work on one platform but not the other, etc.

I use ScriptableObjects because they “Just work” in Unity and they are first class citizens there.

@noorajlyakeen

so we use SO for game saving?

If by “game saving” you mean loading / saving progress by the user, then NO, ScriptableObjects are NOT suitable for that. Here’s more reading:

Load/Save steps:

Save system questions

Saving/Loading is never simple. There’s tons of tutorials out there on Youtube to give you an idea of the process. Basically step 1 is identify what needs to be saved. Might just be a single digit, as in “what level am I on?” Might be a lot more: GameObjects, inventories, internal states of running scripts, positions, rotations, etc. Keep in mind the more you save the more debugging and painstaking engineering you’re going to need to do. And it gets really hairy. Step 2 - design a data stru…

An excellent discussion of loading/saving in Unity3D by Xarbrough:

Save system

If you have no experience, it might be best to first use a prebuilt solution like something from the Asset Store, just to learn those concepts and see the limitations in action. Then you can always write your own. At the same time, you can follow a few tutorials. Just a random one that I remember doing: Persisting Objects But, don’t just take any single thing for an answer. Look at multiple approaches, make your own experiments and then apply what you’ve learned to your own project. Maybe at t…

And another excellent set of notes and considerations by karliss_coldwild:

Saving levels in an in-game level editor

Two advices. Keep your code modular. Just because your objects have some unique scripts and runtime behavior, it doesn’t mean that the data you need to serialize is different. For example you might have a bunch of different button like objects: a button on a wall, pressure button on floor, switch requiring a key. They might each have different scripts attached for handling the activation of them (using keyboard, stepping on, using interact button while having a key). But they all have a common…

Loading/Saving ScriptableObjects by a proxy identifier such as name:

Use the JSON serilization for ScriptableObject with asset fields in Editor and Build

We trivially work around this as follows: we recognize that ScriptableObjects cannot be serialized. we put ALL ScriptableObjects of a given type in a single directory to enforce name uniqueness we make a Repository object to retrieve these ScriptableObjects by name we modify our serializable structures so they: ----> don’t serialize the SO itself ----> they serialize the name of the SO ----> they load the SO as a reference and look it up You cannot use Unity’s “lite” JSON imple…

When loading, you can never re-create a MonoBehaviour or ScriptableObject instance directly from JSON. Save data needs to be all entirely plain C# data with no Unity objects in it.

The reason is they are hybrid C# and native engine objects, and when the JSON package calls new to make one, it cannot make the native engine portion of the object, so you end up with a defective “dead” Unity object.

Instead you must first create the MonoBehaviour using AddComponent() on a GameObject instance, or use ScriptableObject.CreateInstance() to make your SO, then use the appropriate JSON “populate object” call to fill in its public fields.

If you want to use PlayerPrefs to save your game, it’s always better to use a JSON-based wrapper such as this one I forked from a fellow named Brett M Johnson on github:

https://gist.github.com/kurtdekker/7db0500da01c3eb2a7ac8040198ce7f6

Do not 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.

Deserialization risks in use of BinaryFormatter and related types - .NET

A good summary / survey of the problem space:

Loading And Saving

[noorajlyakeen]

thank you very much​:smile: , you’re the best !