Getting array of all surrounding mobs

[Slyth2727]

Right, in my TD game, I am making a tesla tower. If you dont know, a tesla tower has small radius and every once and a while shoots out lightning in all directions harming every mob in radius. I am trying to get an array of all the mobs in radius so I can simply go through a for loop every time the tower "electrocutes" so I can harm all of them. Here is the code:

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public void getMobs() {       for (int i = 0; i < Screen.mobs.length; i++) {          if (Screen.mobs[i] != null && circle != null) {             if (Screen.mobs[i].inGame) {                if (circle.intersects(Screen.mobs[i])) {                   for (int s = 0; s < mobsIR.length; s++) {                      if (mobsIR[s] == null) {                         mobsIR[s] = Screen.mobs[i];                         System.out.println("TARGETED: " + Screen.mobs[i] + " AT INDEX: " + s);                         return;                      }                   }                }             }          }       }    }

The problem is that every time this is called it takes the first mob in radius and assigns it to every number in the the array "mobsIR[]". I know it seems simple but I cant think of a way to do this . Thanks for any help, cMp

[Magn919]

Try replacing that return statement with a break statement.

[Slyth2727]

Does the exact same thing. This method gets called every frame update so that's why neither work.

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[jonjava]

Why do you return or break at all? Try removing it.

[Slyth2727]

Well when I had the break or return it sets the mob to every other index of the array. Without one its sets every index. Thats rather confusing I am not sure why it does that

[jonjava]

how about something like

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for ( int i = 0; i < Screen.mobs.length; i++ ) {    Mob mob = Screen.mobs[i];    if ( circle.intersects( mob ) ) {       System.out.println("TARGET: " + mob.name + " in range!");    } }

I don't really know why you have another for loop inside there?

[Slyth2727]

Ah that works fine!! Now I just need a way to set the index that mob was assigned to to null when it is out of range?

[Slyth2727]

I also had another for loop because Screen.mobs is bigger than mobsIR

[jonjava]

Well if you only have 1 or very few Tesla's and not too many objects you can simply do what needs to be done inside the loop itself.

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for ( int i = 0; i < Screen.mobs.length; i++ ) {    Mob mob = Screen.mobs[i];    if ( circle.intersects( mob ) ) {       System.out.println("TARGET: " + mob.name + " in range!");       mob.killObjectByLightning(); // or something   } }

Or if you want to save all the mobs that are in range into another list:

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tesla.mobsList.clear(); // remove old mobs for ( int i = 0; i < Screen.mobs.length; i++ ) {    Mob mob = Screen.mobs[i];    if ( circle.intersects( mob ) ) {       System.out.println("TARGET: " + mob.name + " in range!");       tesla.mobsList.add( mob ); // add mob into the list   } }

where tesla.mobsList is an ArrayList for example (instead of a constant size normal array):

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/ArrayList.html

then you could loop through the mobs inside the ArrayList like this (for example):

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// this is called a 'for-each' loop, i.e, for each mob in mobsList do { this } for ( Mob mob : tesla.mobsList ) {    System.out.println(mob.name + " is in range of the tesla"); }

or

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for ( int i = 0; i < tesla.mobsList.size(); i++ ) {    Mob mob = tesla.mobsList.get( i );    System.out.println(mob.name + " is in range of the tesla"); }

[Slyth2727]

Perfect, thank you very much I cannot BELIEVE that I didnt think of an ArrayList!  These are the best forums in town!