unity-ecs-patterns

# Unity ECS Patterns Production patterns for Unity's Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) including Entity Component System, Job System, and Burst Compiler. ## When to Use This Skill - Building high-performance Unity games - Managing thousands of entities efficiently - Implementing data-oriented game systems - Optimizing CPU-bound game logic - Converting OOP game code to ECS - Using Jobs and Burst for parallelization ## Core Concepts ### 1. ECS vs OOP | Aspect | Traditional OOP | ECS/DOTS | | ----------- | ----------------- | --------------- | | Data layout | Object-oriented | Data-oriented | | Memory | Scattered | Contiguous | | Processing | Per-object | Batched | | Scaling | Poor with count | Linear scaling | | Best for | Complex behaviors | Mass simulation | ### 2. DOTS Components ``` Entity: Lightweight ID (no data) Component: Pure data (no behavior) System: Logic that processes components World: Container for entities Archetype: Unique combination of components Chunk: Memory block for same-archetype entities ``` ## Detailed patterns and worked examples Detailed pattern documentation lives in `references/details.md`. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient. ## Best Practices ### Do's - **Use ISystem over SystemBase** - Better performance - **Burst compile everything** - Massive speedup - **Batch structural changes** - Use ECB - **Profile with Profiler** - Identify bottlenecks - **Use Aspects** - Clean component grouping ### Don'ts - **Don't use managed types** - Breaks Burst - **Don't structural change in jobs** - Use ECB - **Don't over-architect** - Start simple - **Don't ignore chunk utilization** - Group similar entities - **Don't forget disposal** - Native collections leak