How advanced to you plan out your inventory systems?

[Digital]

How advanced are your item management systems in your games? Do you usually opt for a very simple item system, or do you go for something that is more advanced (and hopefully flexible for future use)?

Pro's and Cons?  @Programmer

[Syntax]

In the past I have typically designed inventory systems to be two-part. The first being the item itself, and the second being a function category. The item data like it's image and name is held with the item, while the function category determines if the item can do anything, like act as food for a pet or be used to paint, in a specific feature, etc. 

It can be a little tricky depending on how you want to vary these up but because I've never needed to search by the field I usually just store some kind of array or JSON in an extra field with any additional data needed for the item. Like a food item may fill up a pet's belly by 10pts or 50pts, etc. 

It makes it easy to grab items from a user's inventory then that only apply to that function category(s) when say feeding a pet. 

[Design1online]

I make a two part inventory system. One table is the items and all the details about the items. The other table is the user's inventory of the items that keeps track of which items they have and how many uses they have. It's pretty simple and also highly flexible, customizable and expandable. 

Edited March 22, 2018 by Design1online

[Hare]

On 3/22/2018 at 5:41 AM, Design1online said:

I make a two part inventory system. One table is the items and all the details about the items. The other table is the user's inventory of the items that keeps track of which items they have and how many uses they have. It's pretty simple and also highly flexible, customizable and expandable. 

That's what we do, too. We also have another table for shops and collections.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Hare