Finding the minimum distance between randomly spawned objects in a 9 x 9 grid.

[CoalCzar]

I have a 9 x 9 set of (x,y) coordinates (81 coordinates total) spaced evenly apart. I am randomly spawning an increasing number of entities in that 9 x 9 grid, e.g., in phase 1 there are 2 entities in the grid, in phase 3 there are 4, in phase 4 there are 7, etc…

Knowing the number of entities I will spawn in that area, I want to figure out how far apart they can be spaced while still allowing for a random position. So I want to know if the random positions are using the space most ineffectively, how far apart would the closest ones be? (this way I can spawn that number of entities and check that they are at least that far away from one another and know that there will still be a spot that it can spawn into).

Thanks and if you have further questions, let me know what I can clarify.

[fred_gds]

Hey,

I’m not quiet sure if understood your problem. As far as I got, was that you are spawning a number of entities, which spawn point is randomly calculated. So you are probably using something like Random.Range to set the position right?

And If I got it right you want to spawn the entites close to each other.

So what I would do is spawn the first entity randomly somewhere. Then I would run something like this to get the coordinates close to it.

var coordinates : Vector3; //or vector 2 whatever you are using for those

var spawnPoints : Array = new Array();
var spawnPointsInRange : Array = new Array();
var spawnPointsUnsorted : Array = new Array();

var firstSpawnPoint : int;

var entitesToSpawn : int;

var maxDistanceToFirstEnitity : int;

firstSpwanPoint = Random.Range(0,82);

For(var a : int = 0; a < 82; a++)
{
if(a != firstSpawnPoint) //Getting all the distances here
{
spawnPoints.Add(Vector3.Distance(coordinates[firstSpwanPoint], coordinates[a]));
spawnPointsUnsorted.Add(Vector3.Distance(coordinates[firstSpwanPoint], coordinates[a]));
}
}

spawnPoints.Sort(); //seeking closest point

for(var d : int =0 ; d < spawnPoints.length; d++)
{
if(spawnPoints[d] < maxDistanceToFirstEntity)
{
spawnPointsInRange.Add(spawnPoints[d]); //adding only the points which are close enough to first entity
}
}

for(var b : int = 0; b < spawnEntities + 1; b++) //seeking coordinate for each entity to spawn
{
var random : int = Random.Range(0, spawnPointsInRange.length); //will create a random number for the position inside the range
for(var c : int = 0; c < spawnPointsUnsorted.length; c++)
{
if(spawnPoints[random] == spawnPointsUnsorted

) 
{
 //Spawn your identity here at coordinats[c]; 
  spawnPointsInRange.RemoveAt(random); // removes the value so that there is only on entity per coordinate
}
}
}

So something like this should work for that. I am not quiet sure if it is what you needed and it's not clean code, but it hopefully contains the basic thought on how to solve the problem.