Scratch

I did exactly what you are describing in my defend your turf game
located @ http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/archmage/14986

What I did was I created a variable called bulletorder to control the order of shooting.
I think you should make yours like this:

///On spaceship sprite
when space pressed
change bulletorder by 1
if bulletorder > 3
set bullet order to 1
broadcast firelazer

/// On the bullet sprites
///(replace "bulletnumber" with the bullets number ie,1,2,3)
When I recieve firelazer
if bulletorder = "bullenumber"
(insert shooting code blocks here)

end script.


I didn't give you shooting codes because it seems you already know them 

I have a multiple bullet demo here:

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/Mayhem/19961

Fires 5 shots horizontally.  Should be easy enough to change to vertical.

So I think what you are saying is you don't want the idle bullets to show up. If this is the case then do this:

/// On the bullet sprites
///(replace "bulletnumber" with the bullets number ie,1,2,3)
When I recieve firelazer
if bulletorder = "bullenumber"
go to spaceship
show
repeat until touching (edge) or (baddies) or (whatever else){
change y by 3}
/// Then after the repeat block
hide

end script.

It's really ok if a bullet just lies there until it is fired again you just have to hide it 

I could solve your problems MUCH easier if you could post your project online 
Because in theory everything should work correctly, it's probably something you just over looked that is causing the problems.

Last edited by archmage (2007-08-16 00:25:46)

No problem, helping newbies out is what I like to do when I get bored of working on my own projects 

PS: I think I understand what your problem was. Was it that the bullets try to execute their firing code while flying after being shot. If this was the case then the code should have been like this to prevent it from being fired while in motion.

First make a variable on each of the bullets and select for this sprite only. I will name my new variable fired.

/// On the bullet sprites
///(replace "bulletnumber" with the bullets number ie,1,2,3)
When I recieve firelazer
if bulletorder = "bullenumber" and "fired"=0
set "fired to 1"
go to spaceship
show
repeat until touching (edge) or (baddies) or (whatever else){
change y by 3}
/// Then after the repeat block
hide
set "fired to 0"

I took a look at mayhems and it has many unnecessary broadcast and global variables.

Last edited by archmage (2007-08-16 00:49:11)

Maybe I will take a look back at it again this weekend and see if yours works, but at the moment, i'm just happy that something worked, lol, but again, i greatly appreciate all the help you've given me and hopefully i will have more projects to contribute shortly.

For now, I want to get the alien bullets working right, which i think i can use your local variable scheme for possibly, and i'll have the bullets speed up each level to increase the difficulty...i wish it would run smoother online, if you download, it's (IMO) the perfect speed and difficulty.

C

Last edited by soccrplyer4life13 (2007-08-16 00:59:54)

@ soccrplyer4life13: Oh I think I know what was causing you problems.  I was programming in my firing method and for some inexplicable reason the shot froze. I think this was because when it received the shooting broadcast while being shot it would stop its firing script. I have never encounter this problem because I never used broadcasts to fire. Well since I guessed that broadcast could stop scripts I used when key space pressed. I think your many broadcasts may be the cause of your lag.

and @ mayhem: I improved your shooter demo. It functions pretty much the same way yours does except it has less global variables. As for the bullet order syncing in my defend your turf game it never went out of sync because of the timing on the bullets. However I know about your concern for the bullet order syncing and so I have altered your shooter demo to include bullet order syncing as well as I few other things. My altered project doesn't use broadcast at all to fire and has less global variables.

find it @ http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/archmage/29593

Last edited by archmage (2007-08-16 12:45:04)

More questions for you guys...I have 12 bullets, one for each alien...they shoot fine and whatnot, but I can't, for the life of me, get them to stop shooting once the alien has been shot...they shoot in the code i have uploaded, and i've been trying to tweak it all evening, no luck...any help would be awesome...

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/soccrplyer4life13/29492

C

I was looking through your project and its pretty huge and I have a hard time understanding it all. But anyways, what you need is a way for the alien's bullets to know if their ships have died. I think I have the solution. After the alien has died and is on  "hide"   set it's y coronate to 180 before you stop its script. And so, then when a alien bullet sprite goes to its homeship ONLY execute your shooting code if it's y coordinate is less than 170 after if goes to the ship. Therefore, if the alien ship is dead it's y coordinate should be 180 and when the ship's bullet goes to the ship and sees that it's y coordinate is greater than 170 it will not execute its firing code 

Last edited by archmage (2007-08-16 23:50:55)

One way to do it is to have the bullets launched by a broadcast that comes from the alien, and that can only be broadcast if the alien is alive.

Broadcasts are not very expensive.  They are often a cleaner, faster way to communicate than setting and testing variables.