Decelerate Spherical Movement

Questions & Answers
1

I have a GameObject that can move freely around a sphere in any direction, and it is controlled by an on-screen virtual joystick. The GameObject is manipulated using the Transform component (does not have Rigidbody attached).

I am trying to get the GameObject to decelerate in it’s current moving direction if the direction is flipped. So say it is traveling around the sphere in one direction and then the joystick is flipped to the other side, right now the GameObject just instantly starts going the other way. I want it to decelerate in the current direction until it’s speed equals zero, then start accelerating in the direction that the joystick is now pointing. Does that make sense? If not let me know and I can elaborate on that a bit. If you need any of my current setup, feel free to ask.

Edit:

Here is a high level look at my code (I’m not on my dev machine at the moment):

if (MoveJoystick.IsFingerDown() && Speed < MaxSpeed)
{
    // Accelerate in current joystick direction until max speed is reached
}
else if (MoveJoystick.IsFingerDown() == false && Speed > 0)
{
    // Slowly decrease speed until speed equals 0
}

// Move ship based on current joystick direction and speed
MoveShip();
2

Without your source code it is difficult to advise. But I’m guessing an “acceleration” model might work. That is, when you set the speed, don’t do it all at once. Increase the speed a little bit each frame up to a maximum. When they flip the joystick, you begin accelerating in the opposite direction, but it will take some frames to neutralize the current direction before it starts moving in the opposite direction. This will also mean that it will take a some frames before it gets up to speed from rest also unless you special code that condition.