Unity / C# Dos

• Put everything into a namespace (avoids function name collisions which are super common)

using UnityEngine;
namespace Crash{
	public class HealthManager : Monobehaviour{
		void Start(){}
		void Update(){}
	}
}

• Use the "Elvis" operator https://csharp.today/c-6-features-null-conditional-and-and-null-coalescing-operators/

gameObject.GetComponent<DestructibleObject>()?.DestructObject();

• For things that involve something being done over time or "parallel", use a Coroutine (https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Coroutines.html)
• Use a Singleton when you know there will be only 1 of something.

namespace Crash{
	public class LoggingManager : Singleton<LoggingManager> {
	}
}

• Singleton should be named with XManager e.g. LoggingManager
• Singleton can then be accessed quite easily/quickly from any script

void Update(){
	if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Alpha0)){
		LoggingManager.instance.UpdateColumn(keyCodeColString, "0 Pressed");
	}
}

• The main camera transform can be accessed via camera.main.transfrom
• When doing something like Collision checking and wanting to see what is hitting the object, instead of string matching for tags, think about what else you could check. A lot of the time you can check to see if the colliding object has a type of component

void OnCollisionEnter(Collision collision){
  if(collision.gameObject.GetComponent<BossManager>() != null){
		Debug.Log("Collided with boss");		
	}
}

• Unity collisions are confusing AF, look here if things aren't working: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CollidersOverview.html
• Use Resource loading: https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Resources.Load.html
• Resource loading can get really gross. A good way around this is to use make a file for all of the folder paths. This makes for easy updating and forces the team to keep resources in order

namespace Crash {
    public class ResourcePathConstants : MonoBehaviour {
        // Materials
        public static string MaterialFolder = "Materials/";
        public static string OutlineSnapColliderMaterial = MaterialFolder + "OutlineSnapCollider";
    }
}
// Example line of how it would be used in another file
Material outlineMaterial = Resources.Load<Material>(ResourcePathConstants.OutlineSnapColliderMaterial) as Material;

• Feel like you are having race conditions (https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/race-condition)? These are usually initialization order issues and result in Null Reference Exceptions. Most likely this can be solved by one of the following steps

  • Quick and dirty fix: use Awake() instead of Start() , reason found here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34652036/awake-and-start Awake() occurs before Start() in Unity and should not do anything except getting variables. Note that all components that you get using GetComponent() should already exist before the Awake function is called
  • Much better/scalable solution in my opinion: use Getters

  namespace Crash{
  	public class Ammo{
  		List<Bullet> bullets;
  
  		public List<Bullet> GetBulletList(){
  			if(bullets == null){
  				bullets = new List<Bullet>();
  				// add other initialization steps here
  			}
  			return bullets;
  		}
  	}
  }