Tukukkk

I am working on a game on Unity, the concept is simple, you have to pick ingredients that fall from the top and stack them, when there are three ingredients of the same type, i destroy them, in the type of a Candy Crush style.

It works fine if i keep stacking elements of the same color, they keep getting destroyed as expected. The problem occurs when there are a lot of ingredients stacked up, where sometimes, 5 elements gets destroyed or 2 elements get destroyed instead of three.

So somewhere along the way of accumulating new objects and destroying those of the same color, sometimes 5 objects get destroyed, sometimes its 2.

It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens quite often, but it seems to be random, i couldn't isolate the case where it happens.

Here is the code i wrote in the Update method of the PlateManager.cs :

     void Update()

    {



            if (countSameIngredients > 2)

            {



                    //Destroying last 3 same ingredients 

                    Destroy(ingredients[ingredients.Count - 3].gameObject);

                    Destroy(ingredients[ingredients.Count - 2].gameObject);

                    Destroy(ingredients[ingredients.Count - 1].gameObject);



                    ingredients.RemoveRange(ingredients.Count - 3, 3);



                    //Checking if the plate is not empty

                    if (ingredients.Count > 0)

                    {

                            //If the plate is not empty, get the two last elements

                            int last = ingredients.Count - 1;

                            int beforeLast = ingredients.Count - 2;



                            //Save the last element type

                            lastIngredientType = ingredients[last].ingType;



                            //Compare the two last elements remaining, to see if they are similar

                            if (beforeLast >= 0 && last >= 0 && ingredients[beforeLast].ingType.Equals(lastIngredientType))

                                    countSameIngredients = 2; //Two similar ingredients on the top of the plate

                            else

                                    countSameIngredients = 1; //Only one element of that color on the top of the plate



                    }

                    else

                    {

                            //If the list is empty, set these options to their default parameters

                            lastIngredientType = "";

                            countSameIngredients = 0;

                    }



                    //Since we destroy the three last same ingredients, we move back the detection zone 3 times back

                    MoveBoxColliderCenterDown(3);

            }



    }

This is the code that destroys the element when there is finally 3 elements of the same type.

To explain the game further, i have a detection zone, which is triggered when an ingredient enters it. Whenever an ingredient enters the trigger zone, i add it to the list of ingredients and check if the count variable should be incremented or set back to one, here is the code that adds and checks those conditions ( inside the Ingredient.cs file ) :

 PlateManager.ingredients.Add(gameObject.GetComponent<Ingredient>());



            if (PlateManager.lastIngredientType == "")

            {

                    PlateManager.countSameIngredients++;

                    PlateManager.lastIngredientType = gameObject.GetComponent<Ingredient>().ingType;



            }

            else if (PlateManager.lastIngredientType != "" && PlateManager.lastIngredientType.Equals(gameObject.GetComponent<Ingredient>().ingType))

            {

                    PlateManager.countSameIngredients++;

                    PlateManager.lastIngredientType = gameObject.GetComponent<Ingredient>().ingType;

            }

            else if (PlateManager.lastIngredientType != "" && !PlateManager.lastIngredientType.Equals(gameObject.GetComponent<Ingredient>().ingType))

            {

                    PlateManager.countSameIngredients = 1;

                    PlateManager.lastIngredientType = gameObject.GetComponent<Ingredient>().ingType;

            }

(ingType variable means "Type of Ingredient" )

I don't understand why it doesn't always work as expected, i can't see it in the code and I need help.

Here is the link to the gitlab : https://gitlab.com/Shyrro/makeasandwich, where you can find the whole project, you can also just download the Builds folder if you want to test it by yourself.
I am also open to any other help or advice. Thanks

I have checked the project in the link you provided. I would change the following:

You are using a:

void OnCollisionEnter(Collision other)

        {



                if (other.collider.tag.Equals("Ground"))

                {

                        Physics.IgnoreCollision(other.collider, boxCollider, true);

                }

        }

I would add instead a onTriggerEnter() check it here

Then, you need to take into account that the Update() is called several times per second, but main action you are performing in the Update() is to check whether you need to destroy some ingredients, which actually should be checked once, when a new ingredient arrives to the stack. I believe that may be the problem.

Try to move the logic inside the Update() to an external function which will be called when the OnTriggerEnter() is triggered (that is when you have a new ingredient in the stack).

Something like:

private void OnTriggerEnter(Collider other)

    {

        checkPlate();

    }



void checkPlate(){



    if (countSameIngredients > 2)

    {



        //Destroying last 3 same ingredients 

        Destroy(ingredients[ingredients.Count - 3].gameObject);

        Destroy(ingredients[ingredients.Count - 2].gameObject);

        Destroy(ingredients[ingredients.Count - 1].gameObject);



        ingredients.RemoveAt(ingredients.Count - 3);

        ingredients.RemoveAt(ingredients.Count - 2);

        ingredients.RemoveAt(ingredients.Count - 1);

        ...     

    }



    ...



}

I actually just found the answer. The detection zone was sometimes too close to the elements on the plate, which caused it to trigger multiple times at times, which messed with the counter.

I just removed the collision between the ingredients on the plate and the detection and now it's working quite fine.

The gitlab is now private since i already found the answer, but i will let the post here as it may help someone in the future. If you're interested in the gitlab code though, you can contact me for access.