Help With Multiple Bullets and Hit Points

AfterBurnett

Hi guys,

I was just wondering what the best way to do multiple bullets that shoot from a gun in my boss character would be?

Basically I want identical bullets to shoot outwards in an arc (it's a retro-inspired side-scroller) at certain intervals. I realise I can do this with having a separate actor for each bullet (one that moves up/left, one that moves left etc etc) but is there a better way?

I have set up "waves" attributes for the enemy ships to change their movement but that is easier as they are not spawned at the exact same time.

The next issue is hit points. I have several points on the boss character that must be destroyed before you can hit his weak-spot and finally kill him. I thought about doing this with actors that overlay the large boss sprite and when they are destroyed they disappear, revealing the original actor underneath, appearing as "damage". Am I on the right track? Or would it be better (or even possible) to use a single actor with multiple hit points? Either way I'd need just as many gfx files to show the damaged parts of the boss ship.

I've almost completed the first level of the game, which will become the template for the whole thing... just the boss has me a little stymied (is that the correct word? LOL).

Any help would be greatly appreciated

quantumsheep

Have a look at this:



Basically, it's one of my actors firing the same 'enemy bullet' four times at the same time.

On the enemy bullet, just use a 'move' behaviour - set to direction 0.

Hope that helps with that part of your problem!

Cheers,

QS

AfterBurnett

I feel stupid now... was right in front of me... HAHAHA

Funny how sometimes we don't think of the simplest things.

Thanks QS!

AfterBurnett

And it works PERFECTLY!

quantumsheep

No worries mate. I miss LOADS of obvious things too - most of us do at some point!

quantumsheep

POLYGAMe said:
And it works PERFECTLY!

Of course it does. It comes from my very own upcoming top down retro shooter

QS

AfterBurnett

But what about the hit points?

quantumsheep

I think your idea of multiple actors for the hit points is sound. Just make sure to spawn a big explosion over the actor when it changes graphic to make it look ultra awesome

AfterBurnett

Yeah, I will but not TOO awesome... the style sits graphically somewhere between an Atari 2600 and an NES.

quantumsheep

And that's not awesome?

AfterBurnett

True, true...