Move player forward relative to direction (pointing towards) using touch input

Unity Engine
1

Hello -

Continuing to port my first game to Unity, I’ve noticed that many tutorials are based on the use of the computer keyboard and not touch input from a mobile device. That has stalled me a bit, since I am using touch input.

That said, I have a script for the buttons and a script for the player controller. I am convinced the script for the button works fine, but am stuck with the player controller. This is what I have in the player controller script thus far:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class PlayerShipControl : MonoBehaviour {

    public float rotationspeed = 5f;
    private Rigidbody2D rb;


    // Use this for initialization
    void Start () {
        rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody2D> ();
    }
   
    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update () {

        if (TouchJoyPad.Button01) {
            transform.Rotate (0, 0, rotationspeed);
        }
        if (TouchJoyPad.Button02) {
            transform.Rotate (0, 0, rotationspeed * -1);
        }
        if (TouchJoyPad.Button03) {
            //insert code to move forward
        }
    }
}

I know I must create a variable to assign a speed. Ideally I should accelerate to a certain max speed when touch is pressed, and coast and stop when touch is released.

My object PlayerShip starts pointing up. How do I know its direction and how do I accelerate relative to its direction?

Thanks, regards,
Marcos

2

If it helps:

My PlayerShip faces up, and rotates on its Z axis. Thus it’s not a top-down, but a front-facing scene.