1

Hi,

I'm trying to create a script which finds the nearest gameObject to the player. The search should only take place on gameObjects of a certain type, and I was wondering what the most efficient way to do this. If you imagine a game of football, where there are 11 players on your side, I need some logic which would check which of the 11 "Teammate" gameObjects is closest in order to pass the ball.

My immediate solution would be to store all the gameObjects I want to 'search' in an array, then iterate through that array to find the nearest.

Is there a quicker, more efficient way of doing this?

2

Yes your solution is pretty much correct. One such implementation might look like this, assuming your "Player" script is attached to every player gameObject and the 'team' is selected as a variable on the player script:

(only relevant parts of the class shown, the rest of your player code would be in this class too)

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class Player : MonoBehaviour {

    public enum Team { Reds, Blues }
    public Team team;

    private Player[] teamMates;

    void Start() {
        teamMates = CollectTeamMates();
    }

    Player[] CollectTeamMates() {

        // we collect them using a list, but output the result as a builtin array
        // (because they perform fastest, and the array doesn't need to change)

        Player[] allPlayers = (Player[])FindObjectsOfType(typeof(Player));

        List<Player> findTeamMates = new List<Player>();

        // collect only those players on our team,
        // and also omit ourself from the list!
        foreach( Player player in allPlayers ) {
            if (player.team == this.team && player != this) {
                findTeamMates.Add(player);
            }
        }

        return findTeamMates.ToArray(typeof(Player));

    }

    Player GetNearestTeamMate() {

        float nearestDistanceSqr = Mathf.infinity;
        Player nearestTeamMate = void;

        // loop through each teamMate, remembering nearest one found
        foreach (Player teamMate in teamMates) {

            Vector3 teamMatePos = teamMate.transform.position;
            float distanceSqr = (teamMatePos - transform.position).sqrMagnitude;

            if (distanceSqr > nearestDistanceSqr) {
                nearestTeamMate = teamMate;
                nearestDistanceSqr = distanceSqr;
            }

        }

        return nearestTeamMate;

    }
}