Saving and writing 'actions' outside of Unity (JSON, XML, ScriptableObject)?

Instead of having to create a prefab with a script, SpriteRenderer and BoxCollider2D for each of my items, I can store all of my items in a JSON file and load that file on startup.

This means I can edit attributes of my game without recompiling the entire game, and has the additional boon of pretty much adding modding support without a second thought. Just save your objects like so:

Code (JSON):

1.  
2. {
3.     "items": [
4.         {
5.            "name": "sword",
6.            "type": weapon"
7.         },
8.         {
9.            "name": "potion",
10.            "type": "consumable"
11.         }
12.     ]
13. }
14.  

and loading them is easy as pie with JsonUtility , or if I feel adventurous, XML. However, this only contains incredibly flat data. What can I do to save an action, a reference to a sprite, data from a collider2D so I can recreate it later, or a projectile pattern?

Ideally, I'd save the type of action this item performs as well, and then when loading the JSON I'd recreate or attach the behaviour depending on what's in the text document, but how would I go about doing that?

 

Check out Unity's Addressable Assets System: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.addressables@1.7/manual/index.html

Basically it will go like this.

• You'll enable AddressableAssets on your project
• Mark any asset that you want to reference this way as Addressable in the Unity editor. This will create a string that you can use as the object's address.
• Save the address as a plain old string to your Json file
• When you load the file, you can get from the address string back to the asset using functions like https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/c...Addressables_LoadAssetAsync__1_System_Object_ or https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/c...ject_Transform_System_Boolean_System_Boolean_

You can make pretty much anything addressable: ScriptableObjects, Textures, Prefabs, etc.