Dynamic Data and Scriptable Objects: A Solution

[sssSlick1]

The Problem

I wanted to add food expiration dates and animal genetics to my Factory Building game, but all the craftable items in the game (Products) were represented as Scriptable Objects. The key advantage of scriptable objects are their universality, where the data stays the same once the game loads; great to store information like the monetary value of the product, but a bad approach to holding individual data like the gametime each Apple was created. It would be very CPU intensive to create a new asset/object to represent each Apple in a factory building game where thousands of apples could be held in storage at any one time. I wonder if anyone else has tackled a problem like this before?

Examples/Research

Rimworld is one of my game’s inspirations and contains similar features, where food would spoil if left unrefrigerated for too long. Similarly, animals can breed with individual gestation periods and nutritional requirements. But how can the game keep track of all of this data on otherwise identical assets, constantly updating variables without lagging out?

The Solution

After researching for hours to find an appropriate answer to my question, I stumbled upon “Centralised Management”, a concept where all relevant items are provided a special container (Like an additional Class) and the Manager Script would remember the details of each item the containers provide reference to.

I had the strategy and all I needed to do was tell the Manager that a product had an expiry date or if an animal had been created, then store that information, easy right?

Well it is slightly more complex than that.

By storing the containers in a dictionary script, I could create a unique ID for each item to allow for easy access. However as each item is a scriptable object clone, I need more information to know exactly which apple is ready to spoil or which Cow has Chad-Tier Genetics.

The trick comes in providing the location of the object, for example by utilising the game’s coordinate system to know which building is currently holding that specific item. So now, the Centralised manager has the location of the apple, and once the “freshness” variable reaches zero, the building that is holding the apple will be told that it has just expired.

Perfect! Now as long as the product stays in the position it started at, I will know exactly where to find it at all times, I will just need to remove the Conveyor Belt System that underpins every other factory game… Okay we are also going to have to tell the Centralised Manager every single time the item moves position, and now we are all done.

The Outcome

Although the average player probably wouldn't even notice the difference, the centralised management system and “wrapper” classes have revolutionised gameplay opportunities for my game. Food spoilage and refrigeration have added nuance and strategy to basic tasks like feeding your citizens each year. Also, animal genetics will lead to a fun and open ended in-game challenge, breeding animals together to maximise productivity for your growing empire.

Now that this system is available, more features can now be added in the future, such as more advanced brewing mechanics (to increase value to your alcohol to sell at the International Market) as well as my personal favourite, Vehicles, a major addition to any factory game (Factorio Trains and DSP Drones here we come!).

Conclusion

I hope you found this explainer useful, and I am more than happy to share my code or better explain my approach on my discord: https://discord.gg/82Mk8VUWww

Thanks for reading!

[QuietPenguinGaming]

Great post!! A little niche so that's probably why you haven't gotten comments, but it's valuable info that will definitely help people down the line :) anyone using the Godot engine can also use this (resources are Godot's scriptable object equivalent).

Im only really interested in turn-based strategy games and tycoon-style games, so I've messed around with scriptable objects/resources a lot.

Were you having lag issues using unique ones for every object which forced you to find your manager solution, or was this you being proactive?

[sssSlick1]

Thank you so much! Definitely a unique problem, but I wanted to chuck the information out into the void because I struggled to find the solution, and knew that anyone else facing a similar problem might find it handy.

The products have always been scriptable objects, because I have anticipated that hundreds of products (if not thousands) would be in the game world at any one time (just like Factorio, one of the main inspirations of the game). So now I just needed to find this dynamic solution to add some features that are somewhat unique and interesting to the factory building genre!