Multiple GameObjects conflicting if Statement

[mrmills]

Hi all. New to Unity and C#. Been playing around for a few days and I have a quick mockup of a game where you control a marble, clicking in the direction you’d like to addForce.

I’ve created these gameObjects called “Black Holes” that suck in the player a little. They also slow down time slightly and the camera zooms in for extra effect.

The issue I’m having is when I create a duplicate of my black holes (so I can place many throughout the stage). I have a feeling I know what the problem is in the logic, but I’m unsure what would be a good fix…

Currently, with two Black Holes in the scene, only one of them triggers the time warp/zoom effect, whereas the other one just sucks in the player a little bit.

Here’s some of my code that is part of the blackhole object

   void Update()
   {
         distanceToPlayer = Vector2.Distance(player.position, transform.position);

         if (distanceToPlayer <= influenceRange)
         {          
            // set the time scale to the variable GameSpeed, adjust the physics engine calculations (deltaTime)
            Time.timeScale = GameSpeed;                            
            Time.fixedDeltaTime = this.fixedDeltaTime * Time.timeScale;
         
            // determine the pull force
            pullForce = (transform.position - player.position).normalized / distanceToPlayer * intensity;
          
            // if the pull force is too much, set it to the max
            // otherwise just set it to what it should be
            if (pullForce.x >= maxPull || pullForce.y >= maxPull){
               playerBody.AddForce(new Vector2(maxPull,maxPull), ForceMode2D.Force);
            } else {
               playerBody.AddForce(pullForce, ForceMode2D.Force);
            }

            // check if game should be slowed down, return it to initial speed
         } else {
            if (Time.timeScale != 1){
               Time.timeScale = 1;
               Time.fixedDeltaTime = initDeltaTime;
            }
         }

   }

I believe the issue is with my final else statement, which returns the game’s speed to normal. I think that the second black hole won’t trigger the effect since the first black hole is technically still out of range. Not sure why it doesn’t work the other way around though (does the first black hole have some sort of priority?). Perhaps I need to migrate this part of the code to the player to check for distances to other black holes… but I’m also unsure how I would get it to differentiate between the copies…

I’ve looked into prefabs for placing these objects, but they don’t seem to be what I’m after (since I need to reference the player in the scene)

Also unsure if this is the best way to go about placing multiple “copies” of the same GameObject in a scene in the first place (i.e. the Black Holes) but I haven’t been able to find the right vocabulary to search for an alternative.

Update: I think I’ve found a solution. Instead of using a check for Distance to Player to determine if the game should slow down, I instead used OnTriggerEnter2D to check whether the player has entered the collider of the black holes and then slowed down if collision was true.

[Kurt-Dekker]

Usually when you have a collection of things like the above, any of which can trigger an effect, what you need is a “thing manager,” in this case a blackhole manager.

It would be responsible for tracking all the black holes, seeing which of them are affecting the player, and making them blink or slow time or whatever. That way it would know when you are near ANY of them, the effect would go off.

[mrmills]

@Kurt-Dekker

Usually when you have a collection of things like the above, any of which can trigger an effect, what you need is a “thing manager,” in this case a blackhole manager.

It would be responsible for tracking all the black holes, seeing which of them are affecting the player, and making them blink or slow time or whatever. That way it would know when you are near ANY of them, the effect would go off.

Thanks for the reply. What would be the best way to implement this? Have the BlackHole manager be a parent to many items or instantiate them using a script? I guess the one thing I haven’t found an answer to yet is how to developers work with many items in a scene? Is there a good/preferred way to group gameobjects?

[Kurt-Dekker]

@mrmills

Have the BlackHole manager be a parent to many items or instantiate them using a script?

That’s one way: just hang the black holes under the manager.

@mrmills

I guess the one thing I haven’t found an answer to yet is how to developers work with many items in a scene

You can really do what you want. Usually there’s a few objects you care about (managers, controllers) and a ton you just do not care about (bullets, explosions).

@mrmills

Is there a good/preferred way to group gameobjects?

I usually parent stuff under the script that made it. Or under another GameObject that is named appropriately, etc.

It’s great to name your GameObjects too. And change their names when they change.

Another great skeel to cultivate is pressing PAUSE while playing your game in the editor and going in and identifying 100% of what is going on based on inspecting the scene.

When you can do that, you’ve really leveled up in Unity and can be useful in someone else’s codebase.

Here’s a shot of one of my levels in Jetpack Kurt, the templates that are used to produce the level procedurally:

This video was made from the above level:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wbtTIWdDQ