transform.Translate but Transform has Rotation!=0

Questions & Answers
1

Hi there!

I was testing enemies movements in my wannabe game, and I’ve noticed a behaviour that I really don’t like.

Basically, I got a simple translation function that should move the enemies to a given target Vector 3.
Skipping useless details, here’s the function itself:

//Your regular Translation function
	void Move(Vector3 _target){

		//DEBUG
		if(Commander.allStandStill){

			//Do nuffin!
		}
		else{
			//First we define the direction - target is assumed as specified.
			direction= _target - transform.position;
			
			//We normalize it
			direction = direction.normalized;
			
			//We set up a Vector used to move you
			moveVector = direction * speed * Time.deltaTime;

			//We scale this so that speed 1 is the minimum value to move you
			moveVector *= 12f;
			
			//And then we move you
			//Space.World helps moving decently even with a 25° X rotation
			transform.Translate(moveVector.x,0f,moveVector.z, Space.World);
		}
	}

Odd Things ( number 2 is the focus of this question):

  1. As you can see I have to multiply moveVector by 12f. I don’t know why, but if I set the speed <= 11 the enemy doesn’t move, while values of 12 or above works. My solution was to multiply the vector by 12f so that a speed of 1 could work ( thus the scale starts at 1 now);
  2. The enemy translates but it doesn’t follow a linear direction even though it’s supposed to do so. My game is 2.5d so little imprecisions of floats for x/z axes are fine, but these curves are obviously more than just a rushed rounding.

I’ve managed to track down a bit what I believe is the source of these curves: the object’s rotation.

All the object’s in my game have 25° of rotation on the X axis.
That’s my 2 cents in tweaking the perspective a little bit so the game seems deeper ( right now the camera is not ortho, and these 25 degrees really show off).

As a matter of fact, I’ve already tried the posted code on an enemy with default rotation ( 0) and everything went as expected: no curves or other oddities.

*Question is: * What would I need to fix those curves and make translation straight with a rotated object?

If you need to know more about my current set up, please let me know!

P.S.: If you think .Translate() is not the best method to use, feel free to point me toward other methods! Thanks for your time

2

you could change move with MoveToowards instead of translate, something like this:

transform.position = Vector3.MoveTowards(transform.position, _target, speed * Time.deltaTime);