Best way to interchange variables of a single script?

Questions & Answers
1

Thanks for checking out my question, I have a gun script that is attached to the player with variables that I want to change depending on which gun the player is holding. I only have one gun implemented so far but want to add more and the current way I am exchanging the variables is pretty ugly and long. I am not sure what the best way of doing this but my best guess is to make a script only containing variables on the weapon model, and on a weapon switch load those into the gun script. But I would like to hear any better or more efficient ways of exchanging variables. Thanks for your time.

2

I think you’d really like Scriptable Object’s. Brackeys has an amazing video on this that really puts it all in plain English too.

If those don’t float your boat, I would also suggest trying out a Strategy Design Pattern . The purpose of this is to provide an easy way to make many things that do the same thing, differently. In plain English: QuickSort and MergeSort both sort a list, but they go about doing it differently. In your case, SMG and Pistol both fire bullets, but may deal damage differently.

To get you started with a basic Strategy Pattern:

IWeapon.cs

//you'll want an interface as the main type to allow you to swap out the damage of guns.
public Interface IWeapon {
    //gets and sets the damage the weapon deals.
    public float getDamage();
    public void setDamage(float damage);
    //gets and sets the rate of fire
    public float getRateOfFire();
    public void setRateOfFire(float rate);
    //gets and sets for whether the weapon is automatic.
    public bool getIsAutomatic();
    public void setIsAutomatic(bool isAuto);
}

Now, lets create a base weapon type that contains the relevant info for a pistol:

Pistol.cs

public class Pistol : IWeapon {
// because this implements the IWeapon interface, you also need to include all its methods.
    
    float damage = 10;
    float rateOfFire = 15;
    bool isAuto = false;

     public float getDamage() {
        return this.damage;
    }
     public void setDamage(float damage){
        this.damage = damage;
    }
     //gets and sets the rate of fire
     public float getRateOfFire(){
        return this.rateOfFire;
    }
     public void setRateOfFire(float rate){
        this.rateOfFire = rate;
    }
     //gets and sets for whether the weapon is automatic.
     public bool getIsAutomatic(){
        return this.isAuto;
    }
     public void setIsAutomatic(bool isAuto) {
        this.isAuto = isAuto;
    }
}

When you want to create say, SMG or Rifle now, all you need to do is implement the IWeapon interface.

To use these, a quick code snippet would be like so:

    public IWeapon weapon = new Pistol();
    public Animator playerPoses;
    public gameObject weaponModel;
    
    public someShootingScript _shootingScript; //the actual script that shoots the gun and has the damage per bullet.
    
    void Start() {
        _shootingScript.setModelAndAnimator(weaponModel, playerPoses);
        _shootingScript.setDamage(weapon.getDamage());
        //... and so on
    }

    void changeToWeapon(Animator pose, GameObject model, IWeapon weapon) {
        //pretty much just repeat Start()
    }

I hope this helps!