Variable Set In Awake Is Cleared

Unity Engine
1

I’ve made a script called AmmoStore to act as a free list for bullets. It has an ArrayList of bullets that I create in Awake. Its value is not modified elsewhere in the code, but for some reason, when I access it, it is null unless I assign it again.

    public ArrayList bullets;

    void Awake ()
    {
		Debug.Log("AmmoStore Awake");
		bullets = new ArrayList();
		Debug.Log("bullets = " + bullets);
	}


	public Bullet getBullet()
	{
		Debug.Log("bullets = " + bullets);
		if(bullets == null)
		{
			bullets = new ArrayList();  //This line keeps getting run and I don't know why
		}
		if(bullets.Count > 0)
		{
			Bullet retBullet = bullets[0] as Bullet;
			bullets.Remove(retBullet);
			return retBullet;
		}
		return makeBullet();
	}

Line 16 is always run, even though I’ve just assigned bullets in Awake.
The output is always

AmmoStore Awake
bullets = System.Collection.ArrayList
bullets =

I’m a bit new to Unity. Is there something about the scope of Awake that I’m missing?

2

You could try something like this to see if it’s getting set back to null anywhere.

public ArrayList bullets {
  get {
    Debug.Log("Getting bullets. Returning " + mBullets);
    return mBullets;
  }
  private set {
    Debug.Log("Setting bullets to " + value);
    mBullets = value;
  }
}
private ArrayList mBullets;