It is overkill if you use 5 Variables ;)
But if you have a type let's say Fighter which has alot of fields required for fighters, everything from x,y,z to Sheilds,Textures and so on. Then you want a Carrier which has the same base structure but has Turrets,Wrapengines, crew, Carrier_Bitmaps and tons of extra stuff. In this case you have two options if you don't want to use OO: 1. Create a Carriers type and a Fighter type both which happen to have alot of fields in common including alot of indentical methods. 2. Use the Carrier-Type for both fighters and carriers. This will lead to alot of unused fields and unused methods for each fighter you create, that is unneccecery use of memory. If you where to extend the fighter into a Carrier. Then the carriers would have everything the fighter has + the extra stuff needed. The fighter would still be just a fighter. That's basically it. It simplifies programming some in certain cases. In big project it can really sort things up! This got a little messy but I hope you got the point =)
//Wave~
But if you have a type let's say Fighter which has alot of fields required for fighters, everything from x,y,z to Sheilds,Textures and so on. Then you want a Carrier which has the same base structure but has Turrets,Wrapengines, crew, Carrier_Bitmaps and tons of extra stuff. In this case you have two options if you don't want to use OO: 1. Create a Carriers type and a Fighter type both which happen to have alot of fields in common including alot of indentical methods. 2. Use the Carrier-Type for both fighters and carriers. This will lead to alot of unused fields and unused methods for each fighter you create, that is unneccecery use of memory. If you where to extend the fighter into a Carrier. Then the carriers would have everything the fighter has + the extra stuff needed. The fighter would still be just a fighter. That's basically it. It simplifies programming some in certain cases. In big project it can really sort things up! This got a little messy but I hope you got the point =)
//Wave~