Is DOTS worth learning? Up to date resources

[dusk bobcat]

Hey there, I'm having the idea of starting a fun project with a big world in constant evolution, using some kind of AI for my characters.
I'm an accomplished dev and am starting to be quite familiar with the programming side of unity.
DOTS is really attracting me atm, it looks to be so interesting and such a good fit for my game (It'd allow me to process more NPC in my game doing their own stuff and make it more realistic)

However, it almost feels like DOTS died around a year ago now.
There is barely any resources for ECS 1.2 online and most of the existing resources are using somewhat outdated packages.

Is DOTS in a stage where I can start messing around with?

Do you have some resource that are somewhat up to date I could use to dig into it?

[finite storm]

1.0 resources are fine

[dusk bobcat]

Would you recommend me to get into it? Is it something that's worth spending time and energy?

[finite storm]

if you want multithreaded game - Unity ECS is best out there

[dusk bobcat]

Yeah that's 100% what I want. The idea is to create a game such as rimworld with a more limited map size ( I don't think that a whole planet is doable lol) but where all the NPC's are doing their thing is somewhat real time wherever this is

[finite storm]

rimworld world map is fake

it's a custom simulation with completely different logic

with dots you can achieve much bigger map size than rimworld can afford

so like 500 x 500 or much bigger

[dusk bobcat]

Yeah, the idea would be not to be limited by a map size such as rimworld, but instead going somewhat open world. I don't want to go as granular for the details as rimworld (like whole body system) and I also want some kind of hybrid 3d isometric/fps view

[finite storm]

body system is not really something that bottlenecks it

but anyway - as someone coming from Rimworld modding too, I learnt dots to make my own rimworld 2.0 (but never actually got to it). So I think it's a great fit, but I gotta warn you - for someone who never worked with neither ECS or multithreaded code, it'll be a tough thing to learn

[dusk bobcat]

Yeah I know that 😄 I'm no gamedev, I just want to have fun really. The game at first might be as simple as a flat plane and some capsules moving around and doing their thing. But the concept of DOTS amazes me, I really want to get into it

Do you have any going "all round" tutorial/course on DOTS that could be nice as an entry point? I just started https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO6_6Y_YUdE but he is using the 1.0 experimental. I'm just worried I'll get into a 2h course all of that to have an issue within the next hour lol

[finite storm]

DOTS is just a tech stack, there are no unique concepts of it.
ECS has been there before Unity.
Job Systems too.

Unity ECS is just a pretty unique implementation of ECS that focuses on multithreading a lot.

[finite storm]

dw, this tutorial is fine

there may be just a couple of things that changed over time

like TransformAspect (that is removed now)

and baking api changed a tiny bit

but overall, nothing changed aside from that

so just ask in a chat #1064581837055348857 if you get stuck on smth

[dusk bobcat]

Cool, thanks!

Are they still actively improving DOTS lately? Do we know their plans for it?

[blazing coyote]

They kind of hinted at some stuff at GDC

Where gameobjects will now all get entities

So it's kind of being merged into the core of the editor and unified

[dusk bobcat]

Oh wow, that's cool

Good future for the engine at least 😄