[Solved] Tilting and accelerating a spaceship

Unity Engine
1

Hey guys.
I finally decided to seriously pick up Unity recently and now I’m watching a ton of tutorials and making tests with all sorts of codes for a space game, with an almost top-down perspective. (first time I ever dabbled in C# codes)
Looks like I hit a wall regarding controlling the movement of the player’s spaceship.
My current code so far does this:

  • it rotates the player ship to always face the direction of the mouse using Raycast
  • it moves the player ship in relation to the mouse direction, so “forward” will always be towards the mouse
    What additions I need:
  • tilting/banking the ship in the direction it’s going
  • the ship accelerates to max speed in an instant, I want to make the acceleration/deceleration smoother

Been trying for a while now to figure it out, by making a Frankenstein monster from various tutorial code parts, but nothing works properly, so I’m down to your mercy.

This is my code:

    public float moveSpeedFront;
    public float moveSpeedBack;
    public float moveSpeedSides;


    void FixedUpdate ()
    {
        PlayerLooksAtMouse ();
      
        if (Input.GetKey (KeyCode.W))
            transform.Translate (Vector3.forward * moveSpeedFront * Time.deltaTime);
        if (Input.GetKey(KeyCode.S))
            transform.Translate (-Vector3.forward * moveSpeedBack * Time.deltaTime);
        if (Input.GetKey(KeyCode.A))
            transform.Translate (Vector3.left * moveSpeedSides * Time.deltaTime);
        if (Input.GetKey (KeyCode.D))
            transform.Translate (-Vector3.left * moveSpeedSides * Time.deltaTime);
    }

    void PlayerLooksAtMouse ()  // this is so the ship always faces/rotates in the direction of the mouse pointer
    {
        Vector3 mousePosition = Vector3.zero;
        Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay (Input.mousePosition);
        RaycastHit hit;
        if (Physics.Raycast (ray, out hit))
        {
            mousePosition = new Vector3 (hit.point.x, transform.position.y, hit.point.z);
            transform.rotation = Quaternion.Slerp (transform.rotation, Quaternion.LookRotation (mousePosition - transform.position), 1f * Time.deltaTime);
        }

    }

Now I found an official tutorial with a spaceship that tilts left/right, but I just can’t figure out how to merge that code with mine to make my ship tilt. while also preserving my current control scheme.

This is the example tutorial code:

[System.Serializable]
public class Done_Boundary
{
    public float xMin, xMax, zMin, zMax;
}

public class Done_PlayerController : MonoBehaviour
{
    public float speed;
    public float tilt;
    public Done_Boundary boundary;
  

    void FixedUpdate ()
    {
        float moveHorizontal = Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal");
        float moveVertical = Input.GetAxis ("Vertical");

        Vector3 movement = new Vector3 (moveHorizontal, 0.0f, moveVertical);
        GetComponent<Rigidbody>().velocity = movement * speed;
      
        GetComponent<Rigidbody>().position = new Vector3
        (
            Mathf.Clamp (GetComponent<Rigidbody>().position.x, boundary.xMin, boundary.xMax),
            0.0f,
            Mathf.Clamp (GetComponent<Rigidbody>().position.z, boundary.zMin, boundary.zMax)
        );
      
        GetComponent<Rigidbody>().rotation = Quaternion.Euler (0.0f, 0.0f, GetComponent<Rigidbody>().velocity.x * -tilt);
    }
}

Thank you for your time.

2

I would add another variable:

        if (Input.GetKey (KeyCode.W)){ 
 transform.Translate (Vector3.forward * (moveSpeedFront  + accl)* Time.deltaTime);
}
if (accl < acclTop)
   accl += speed;

for the tilt:

3

Cheers for the input mate. Going from your suggestion I spent the better part of yesterday until like 5AM trying to figure out various ways on how to get both the tilt and acceleration working properly, eventually I ended up with this configuration that seems to be working better than I even hoped for, almost brings a tear to my eye.

    void FixedUpdate () {

        PlayerLooksAtMouse ();

        if (Input.GetKey (KeyCode.W))
        {
            rb.freezeRotation = true; // to prevent random spinning after a collision
            rb.AddRelativeForce (0, 0, 2.5f, ForceMode.Acceleration);
            transform.Rotate (new Vector3 (3, 0, 0) * Time.deltaTime * 5f, Space.Self);
        }
}

    void PlayerLooksAtMouse () // this is to the ship always rotates in the direction of the mouse pointer
    {
        Vector3 mousePosition = Vector3.zero;
        Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay (Input.mousePosition); 
        RaycastHit hit;
        if (Physics.Raycast (ray, out hit)) 
        {
            mousePosition = new Vector3 (hit.point.x, transform.position.y, hit.point.z);
            transform.rotation = Quaternion.Slerp (transform.rotation, Quaternion.LookRotation (mousePosition - transform.position), 1f * Time.deltaTime);
        }

    }
4

Glad you got it working!