Trying to avoid update, worried about time consistency

Questions & Answers
1

Hi, I’m using some coroutines to avoid update whenever I can, but I noticed some inconsistencies in where my particles stop moving while doing some tests (dev’ing for android devices)

this is my coroutine to move an effect

    IEnumerator MoveProjectile(float duration, GameObject enemy)
    {
        currentAttack.transform.position = SKT_Hand_R.transform.position;

        Vector3 attackDir = (enemy.transform.position - SKT_Hand_R.position).normalized;

        float startTime = Time.time;
        while (Time.time < startTime + duration)
        {
            currentAttack.transform.position += attackDir * attackVelocity;
            yield return null;
        }
    }

Ideally I would prefer the particle effect (the projectile being moved) to stop at the same position each time, but I noticed while testing that the difference in distance can be pretty substantial (if the “unit” is one player’s width, this projectile can stop moving anywhere from 1 unit to 3 units away)

I’m testing this on my pc, and I’m worried that on devices that are much slower, the distances at which these projectiles stop will be greater

Is there a better way to move a projectile and guarantee distance traveled? I’m guessing these differences in distance are due to floating point precision?

Thanks for any advice/pointers/suggestions

2

When you yield return null, Unity pauses execution of the coroutine and schedules it to continue on the next frame, so your

while (Time.time < startTime + duration)

is functionally exactly the same as if you’d written

if (Time.time < startTime + duration)

inside an Update()

To correct for different frame rates on different devices, you should either use FixedUpdate() or else adjust by Time.deltaTime inside your coroutine/Update.

3

Hi @mikeDigs.

You could use the Time.deltaTime value. It will compensate the difference between frames for the movement and smooth it out.

Hope it helps!

Just noticed while writing that @OusedGames has already said something alike. There is no need for using it on an update method if you prefer a coroutine.