ORK Framework - The complete RPG Engine for Unity 5

Hello,

I've been looking at this tool but am hesitant to get it. I have a few questions that hopefully someone can answer.

First, how is the performance of Ork frame? When working in the Unity Editor are there any performance issues that can be traced to this asset? What about when building the game? Are there any required ORK components that cause performance overhead issues? Just for some context, the reason I ask this question is because I have read and been told, that when building games in Unity, it is best to avoid assets such as ORK, Game Creator, etc because of performance.

Second, is there anything in ORK that helps with changing the appearance of a character? One common theme of RPGs is upgrading weapons and armor. Does ORK have a good built-in solution for swapping out weapons and armor on the player character?

Thanks

 

If you haven't done yet, I'd highly recommend to go through ORK's game tutorial series, which can be completed with the free test version. So, no need to purchase before trying it out

As for your questions:

1) Performance is hard to really determine - this largely depends on what you're doing with it, e.g. 'simple' battles with a few combatants vs a large scale real time area battle with hundreds of combatants will naturally perform very differently.
Generally I'd think I made is as performant as possible, though I often find new ways to improve that.
Editor-wise, if you're doing grid battles, the editor can get somewhat slow when editing large grids. Also, the larger your ORK project data gets, the longer it can take to load the project when opening ORK's editor.

As for components, you need at least a Game Starter component somewhere to initialize ORK in your running game - the rest is up to the game you're creating.

2) You can show equipment on your characters using Equipment Viewer components (see this how-to for details). This is also part of the game tutorials. Equipment viewers can spawn equipment prefabs, match child object movement (e.g. sleeves to arms) and change materials of the character's renderers.

 

Thank you very much for the answer. The information proved to be valuable.

Also, one final question, how is the development of ORK 3 coming along, and can you speak to some of the benefits/improvements of that over ORK 2?

Thanks again.

 

ORK 3 is coming along pretty good, you can check out the open beta here. Release is currently scheduled for fall/winter 2021.
Overall, ORK 3 will be a modernization of editor, data structure and many of the features and background systems. The new editor has a lot of quality of live improvements (e.g. searchable dropdown fields), the new modular UI system makes UI setup easier and more flexible, Makinom's schematics replacing the event system also adds a large boost in possibilities (and the new node editor is also a large step in in QoL features).
ORK 2 is already over 7 years old, so there was a lot to improve on that wasn't possible before due to having to be compatible with previous versions

 

Thanks again. I think I'll use the next few months to continue to plan my project and wait for ORK 3 to be released. I'm looking forward to it.

 

ORK 3 sounds great. In fact, I'm pretty sure that ORK 2 (and 3) is one of the big reasons many of us never jumped ship to UE4.

 

ORK Framework 2.34.0 is here!

This small update adds new battle event nodes to predetermine the outcome of actions and other new features, changes and fixes.
See the release notes for all details.

Please note: Due to the Asset Store no longer allowing uploads below Unity 2019, you’ll remain on ORK 2.33.0 when using Unity 2018 or lower. Contact me via email (including your order number) to receive the latest version for Unity 5.6, 2017 or 2018).


Meanwhile, ORK 3 is currently on (open) BETA 13, see the beta page for all changes so far. There've been a lot of awesome new features added in the last months, and it's slowly nearing completion (at least for official release).

Upgrade ORK 2 to ORK 3
Another important information - while ORK 3 is generally a paid upgrade to ORK 2, purchasing ORK 2 in 2021 will guarantee you a free upgrade to ORK 3!