really weird problem, Enum refusing to change state.

Question

Ok, so I'm using a simple enum and case/switch to control the State of my enemy AI. It's all up and running fine, except for when I'm trying to change to AIState.dying from the AIState.injured.

Having said that, I can change to AIState.dying from other states, and can change from AIState.injured to other states with no problem at all. The problem is only when changing from AIState.injured to AIState.dying.

I've included some, (messy) code below to illustrate the problem.

My enum is set up like t$$anonymous$$s:

 enum AIState
 {
 spawning,
 roaming,
 attacking,
 injured,
 chasing,
 dying
 }

Then I switch between states like t$$anonymous$$s:

 switch (currentState) {
         case AIState.spawning: 
         
             yield WaitForSeconds (1);
             currentState = AIState.roaming;
             
             break;
  
         case AIState.roaming: 
             //make enemy roam around
             
             //checking for proximity to player here
             distance = Vector3.Distance( player.transform.position, transform.position);
         
                 if ( distance < 1.8 && distance > 0.05 ) 
                 {
                     currentState = AIState.chasing;    
                 }
             
             break;
             etc

The state giving me problems is like so:

      case AIState.injured: 
                         myHealth --;
                         
                         if (myHealth <= 0)
                         {
                         Debug.Log("health = 0.");
                          currentState = AIState.dying; //<-- problem is here
                         }

                         currentState = AIState.roaming;
     
     break;

And the dying state is here:

 case AIState.dying: 
             Debug.Log("dying.");
             Destroy (gameObject);
             
             break;

Now, if I set: currentState = AIState.dying; from another state, it works fine. the enemy is deleted and "dying" is printed to the console.

Likewise, if I change the conditional statement in the problem state to:

 if (myHealth <= 0)
                             {
                             Debug.Log("health = 0.");
                              currentState = AIState.attacking; //<-- or another AIState                            }

Then again, it works perfectly. The problem is only when changing from injured to dying.

Apologies for the terrible formatting. The problem is pretty straightforward, but it's tough to explain using snippets of code. I'm not precious about my code, if anyone wants the whole enemy script, just say so.

Does anyone know what's causing t$$anonymous$$s strange behaviour?

Thanks

Dan

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by karljj1 · Oct 17, 2013 at 07:37 PM

At line 10 you seem to set the value back straight after changing to dying.

 if (myHealth <= 0)
 {
     Debug.Log("health = 0.");
     currentState = AIState.dying; //<-- problem is here
 }
  
 currentState = AIState.roaming; // LOOK HERE! You set it back straight after setting it to dying. It never stood a chance.

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Spider_newgent · Oct 17, 2013 at 07:46 PM 0

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Hey, thanks for the quick reply.

It's set back to roaming to ensure that if health > 0, it continues following the player.

To my knowledge, setting the state to AIState.dying should delete the object before it can be set back?

Spider_newgent · Oct 17, 2013 at 07:52 PM 0

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and to clarify, if I comment out the line you mention, it still doesn't work. "dying" never gets printed and the object doesn't get destroyed.

Spider_newgent · Oct 17, 2013 at 08:43 PM 0

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Ok, on reviewing it again, you were totally right.

For anyone else encountering anything similar in future, I got around it by making damage conditional, like this:

 case AIState.injured: 
                         Debug.Log("injured.");
                         if (!beenHit){
                         myHealth --;
                         beenHit = true;
                         }
                         else if (beenHit && myHealth > 0){
                         beenHit = false;
                         currentState = AIState.roaming;
                         }
                         
                         if (myHealth <= 0)
                         {
                         Debug.Log("health = 0.");
                          currentState = AIState.dying;
                         }
             break;

really weird problem, Enum refusing to change state.

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