[Feedback wanted] Multi-purpose item struct

[Ardoc]

@vanlacke;445539

I thought maybe you were creating something to release since you said this: …]

I don’t think it’s anything worthy of releasing (all my UE4 development is available on GitHub anyway), only asking if people would use a item struct like this. I just want to find a good item structure I could use for my future games/prototypes.

@vanlacke;445539

What I showed were simply examples. Yes, 2d weapon with bools “locked” would be totally useless. That’s what I’ve been trying to say about your current system. Unless I’m mistaken, every item created will have lots of unneeded variables.

So what I would do, is simply make a different struct for a 2d weapon with its own specific variables. I would show you however I already deleted everything…

No worries, I think I understand, a more specific struct for-that-type-of-item kinda thing.

@Hyperloop;445545

I went down the same path, and while it does work well for me, I did run into some issues because changing structs in the editor can corrupt blueprints and disconnect nodes. …]

Yes, I’ve had the editor crash on me many times. Structs are more stable now than before, still not “great” though (yet).

@Hyperloop;445545

In the end, after having done this in my game, I would only do it this way again if I knew I was dealing with many many item types. If I only had a few dozen I would not define them dynamically like this but it has it’s advantages when you have hundreds, as I do.

For what you are doing, based on the structure you have there I’d recommend not trying to store everything in one giant struct like that, but rather separating out like things into their own data structures. It’s a pain to get and put things into structs that are nested deeply.

I am already working on a new item struct, trying to make it more “flat” (less nesting). Got lots of ideas going thanks to vanlacke’s examples.

@Hyperloop;445545

Another thing you could consider is that you have access to data tables, so you could develop your item data in excel or similar and import those tables and get the item data based on a key/value

Ah, didn’t know data tables existed!

@SaxonRah;445553

An item is much more simple than a potion or weapon. The Item is the base underlying thing that represents an item. In your case an item is a struct with many parameters that has struct with many parameters that has a struct with many parameters, all of the structs have states (bools). allot of functionality that is unnecessarily grouped. Don’t make an item that has everything, make an item that has the most basic of functionality and then inherit that item to build specialized ones from it.

for example why does items_params have weaponstats, if the item is a potion ? Object orientation is your friend.

Yes, people already mentioned blueprint inheritance, etc. My way of thinking of this item struct is that it’s a collection of items that are easy to setup/change.
Example how I could use the item(s):