C# array question

Personally I would use a List. It would be a lot easier to add and remove the aliens. Plus you won't be limited in the size like an array.

That could work too. But now I had another thought: would it be even easier to make a whole separate class for the alien? And then just put whatever number of aliens I want on the screen in that list? I think I'm confusing myself tho...

Take a look at Microsoft's XNA tutorial example. I think it might help guide you to what you are looking for.

http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/tutorial/2dgame/creating_enemies

Thank you very much :)

Personally I would use a List. It would be a lot easier to add and remove the aliens. Plus you won't be limited in the size like an array.

A c# list<> is a dynamically sized array class, much like c++'s vector. This is probably what you want.

However if you know a maximum number of aliens then an array would be fine, you would need a flag to know which ones are active, so you can selectively draw and update only the ones you want.

Also I think I'm going to use an array instead of a list. I figured there to be 24 aliens on the screen and I think that an array would be easier to work with since I'm only destroying the aliens, not adding any

Alien[] alienGroup = new Alien[24];

An array is probably more complex than a list. This is because with an array you have to manually track two things, the array itself and a counter of the number of active objects. You also may need to implement logic to "shuffle" the aliens in the array when one in the middle dies. A list handles this all for you.

Alternatively, you could use "null" to represent dead aliens. However, now your code must carefully check for null before accessing any element of the array.

A two dimensional array might make sense if you were writing a game like Space Invaders, where the aliens have some kind of pattern or formation. In particular, it allows you to avoid storing the positions of individual aliens, their position on the screen or for collision can be inferred from the indices of their entry in the matrix. If your game just spawns aliens in random locations, then I would not recommend a multi-dimensional array. However, if your game has some kind of limited, grid based levels, then storing all the objects (including the player, any obstacles, pickups etc) in a multi-dimensional array would make sense, though you may wish to store the aliens in a separate container anyway.

As for the problem of your sprites animating too fast, you need to incorporate real world time into your update cycle. Otherwise your animations will play at different speeds on different machines, and they will slow down if the game starts to get "busy" - such as levels with more enemies, or if the enemies shoot lots of bullets or there are explosions, etc.

With the way the aliens are layed out, an array would make more sense i think. There a 4 rows of six, and when one dies the dont squish together. They stay in the same pattern but with just one missing from the area that was hit

Thats not what rip-off was trying to suggest. He was saying if you use an array you have to keep track of whether the sprite should be visible (i.e has been hit or not) in a list when its hit you just remove it from the list and no longer need to check whether it needs to be rendered, updated or have collisions for hits against it etc anymore.

My 2-cents: Array is going to cause more problems that it would solve.

So, you use an array Alien[24] and delete Alien[16] well now your list has NULL. you now have to check for this or risk having an exception thrown, if you use a List when you remove element 16, there is no null, just 13 elements in the list.

The only advantage a Array will give you over a list of perhaps with drawing

(for int x; x < 6; x++) 
    DrawAt(x * 64)
 

but again, this can be done using a List Too.

OK so this is what I have so far

int alienCount = 6; 

public List<Vector2> alienPos = new List<Vector2>();

in the start of my class

            for (int x = 0; x < alienPos.Count; x++)
            {
                alienPos[x] = new Vector2 (20*x + 50, 50);
            }

this is my initialize method

It compiles and runs but the aliens arent being drawn on the screen

Edit: figured out that I wasn't ever adding anything to the list -.- but heres the code for that

alienPos[x].Add(new Vector2(x + 20 + 50, 20));

And it gives me the error that Add doesnt take 1 argument

Hey burnt_casadilla,

Just a few things:

You shouldn't need alienCount or alienPos. Rather, you'll want to have a List that stores its Position, so that it can Draw itself with only spriteBatch passed in as a parameter.

The reason for the error, is that you're actually calling Vector2.Add (which adds together 2 Vector2), since you're referring to the item in the List itself by specifying the index.

OK so this is what I have so far

int alienCount = 6; 

public List<Vector2> alienPos = new List<Vector2>();

in the start of my class

            for (int x = 0; x < alienPos.Count; x++)
            {
                alienPos[x] = new Vector2 (20*x + 50, 50);
            }

for (int x = 0; x < alienPos.Count; x++)

{

alien.Draw(spriteBatch, alienPos[x]);

}

It compiles and runs but the aliens arent being drawn on the screen

Edit: figured out that I wasn't ever adding anything to the list -.- but heres the code for that

alienPos[x].Add(new Vector2(x + 20 + 50, 20));

And it gives me the error that Add doesnt take 1 argument

because alienPos is a List and the indexer alienPos[x] returns a Vector2 so you are doing Vector2.Add(..) like ndssia said.

alienpos.Add(new Vector2(x + 20 + 50, 20)); //Why 20 + 50? why not just 70 :P seems a little silly

I actually figured it out at 3 am when my brain was shutting off :P very strange. But thank you everyone for the help!! One last request...I'm going to need a timer or something along those lines. I want the aliens to move a certain x position every second, and then in a time span of 5 seconds I'm going to have them shoot their bullets randomly so not every alien is shooting at once