player shooting and moving

[willow]

im looking to have the player move eight directions and then shoot in the direction he is facing when pressing "spacebar"
currently using this:

x repeat while "space bar" is pressed
-> player restore animation direction
-> player set alt var a to 0

alt var a=0
repeat while "spacebar" is pressed
player is facing direction "down"
-> player change anim dir to "down"
-> player set alt var a to 1
-> player shoot "shot" at speed 100
and so on for each direction

im pretty sure this is !not! the way to do this.

could you help?

thanks

[DavidN]

You're right - when you find yourself about to clone a heap of events and very slightly modify them, there's often an easier way.

You can use the player's direction as an input for where to shoot. On the "shoot object" dialog box, there's an option to "Shoot in specified direction" - select that, then select the "Use an expression" button (I think it looks like "1+1"). This takes you to the Expression Editor, where you can put in Dir("Player") - or use the "Retrieve data from an object" button to click through to the list of objects and select that expression from the Player object yourself. This will avoid you duplicating the event for each direction, so you can just have:

alt var a=0
repeat while "spacebar" is pressed
-> player change anim dir to Dir("Player")
-> player set alt var a to 1
-> player shoot "shot" at speed 100 in direction Dir("Player")

(I'm also not sure why you need to force your animations frames about here, but perhaps you have a reason for this!)

[willow]

you will have to forgive me i never programed in my life and it looked like an answer now i relize i will be asking for more help.
in relation to force the animation i thought i had to make sure i was pointing in the correct direction for this to work as i said ive NEVER programed b4.

[DavidN]

You don't have to apologize, we've all been at your stage I just wasn't sure whether to leave in the animation direction changing action or take it out.

[willow]

hi i added x repeat while "spacebar" is pressed
player -> change dir to dir "player"
player -> set alt var a to 0
as this improved the players movement
added player collides with background
player -> bounce
but the player does not bounce hard to explane he stops dead their is no feedback from the impact.
i am not using any custom movement for the player is it possible to achive this without custom movement?

thanks for your time