/unity-ecs-patterns

name: unity-ecs-patterns
description: Master Unity ECS (Entity Component System) with DOTS, Jobs, and Burst for high-performance game development. Use when building data-oriented games, optimizing performance, or working with large entity counts.

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