Planting System

[copper falcon]

Hi, I am trying to create a garden simulator and i'm stuck on a problem, I have a basic point and click planting system but I don't know how to prevent from these plants from stacking ontop of eachother. Here are the photos of my basic setup:

[south tide]

you could check whether currentseed is null and return if its not prior to the planting logic

[golden walrus]

If raycast is hitting a plant return

[copper falcon]

How would I do any of that

[copper falcon]

Sorry I’m kinda new

[golden walrus]

Ask chatgpt brother, use the tool to your disposal

[copper falcon]

I guess but i want to learn how to do it alone first

[trail wharf]

This is a help thread. People come here to learn and understand how to do new things and we expect people to respond to these with helpful responses.

Not only is replying to these with ai generated code or answers against our guidelines, it’s also not helpful

Please refrain from doing this again

[copper falcon]

ok but how do i do this 😭

[sonic drift]

You need to store what plant has been placed in each plot.
So when you click a plot, you can check that to see if there's anything there.

In this case i assume New_Plant is the plant you just placed, store that in a variable OUTSIDE the function so it persists after the function ends.

[golden walrus]

Oh sht sorry didn't know

[copper falcon]

So I should change the New_Plant variable to a list

and when I click, i check the cords of the other plants within the list and if its like 10 pixels away from the plant it will be placed?

[sonic drift]

How many plants do you want per plot?

[copper falcon]

its not on a grid based system so its basically how many you can fit

[sonic drift]

aah, in that case you may want to make the plants themselves be an area, and when you place down the plant, cancel the attempt if it results in an overlap with another plant.

[copper falcon]

so an area2d?

[sonic drift]

Yeah.
There are other ways to check for overlap, but that's the most automatic kind.

[copper falcon]

ok last question what would be the method for that

as the plot itself is an area2D

[sonic drift]

Basically when the plant is placed down. You can use get_overlapping_areas() on _ready() to get an Array of all other areas it overlaps with.
Then check if any of them are plants. If they are, delete the plant and report that the placement failed.

You could also check BEFORE placing the plant trough other methods. But this saves you from creating new objects or using PhysicsServer methods.

[copper falcon]

Ok thanks!

[copper falcon]

uh so from the Plot script I can't call get_overlapping_areas() for the new plant

Im doing it like so

var placeable = NewPlant.get_overlapping_areas()

[sonic drift]

The new plant can do that by itself in its own script.

[copper falcon]

oh

[sonic drift]

That is why i am saying that you have to place it first and then make the plant delete itself.

If you where to do a different check, from the plot for example, then you could prevent the placement altogheter. But it would be a bit more complicated.

[copper falcon]

so I would have to create a seperate script?

oh ok I see now

so is there any way you could communicate the destruction of the new plant back to the plot script

[sonic drift]

You can connect a signal from the plant as it is being added.
But it depends on what is the goal of that.
If you just need to check how many plants there are, you can have the plot itself count the amount of plants overlapping it.

[copper falcon]

later on I would like to limit the amount of plants

so if the plant is destroyed i want the plant to be refunded

[sonic drift]

That is what i assumed.
A signal would work for that.

Like:

#Plant script

signal cancelled

func validate_placement():
  for area: Area2D in get_overlapping_areas():
    #The area found has a Plant script
    if area is Plant:
      #Emit a signal, delete itself and exit this function
      cancelled.emit()
      queue_free()
      return

When creating the plant, you can connect it like so:

  NewPlant.cancelled.connect(refund)
  add_child(NewPlant)


func refund():
  plants_remaining += 1

[copper falcon]

and I assume I should make a tag for plants

right

[sonic drift]

You can either "tag" them with a group, or just check for their class (in this case i am assuming your plant script has class_name Plant in it, and using the is operator to check that)

[copper falcon]

For some reason it still doesn't work

[copper falcon]

after debugging i think there is something wrong with this piece of code

        
        print_debug(area)
        
        if area is Plant:
            cancelled.emit()
            queue_free()
            return```

[sonic drift]

Make sure that the plants do have a script with class_name Plant
And that the collision_layer and mask of the involved areas allow them to be found.

[copper falcon]

I checked all these and it seems to be what you said

btw its inside the _onready() function and it seems to not get past the "for area" part

[sonic drift]

_onready() is not a built in function. Are you calling it from somewhere?

[copper falcon]

i meant _ready() sorry

here is the script if you need it

[sonic drift]

it must mean that it did not find anything during ready.
Or that none of what it found was a Plant

If you use breakpoints (just type breakpoint in the line in which you wish to stop) you can check the tree and the relevant values while the game is frozen.
You can then navigate with these buttons

[copper falcon]

Okay so what do I check for

[copper falcon]

Ok so I figured out that the area vairable just returns false no matter where it is placed

Nvm I just figured it out, the ready function was somehow happening before the node was added as a child in the tree

Even when I reorganize the code for the Placement check to happen

I still get 0 results for overlaping areas

contrary to when I put overlapping layers into proccess i get the desired output

please help i have no idea what is happening

[copper falcon]

please someone help me

[sonic drift]

Try enabling Project>Visible Collision Shapes and use breakpoints to better check what is running when.

I at least can't help much more with this context.

[leaden crane]

Make a signal that will be emitted only after the get_overlapping_areas() function is finished
Before validate_placement() function, add await function, so that the validation_placement() function will run only after get_overlapping_areas() function is finished

[copper falcon]

Im kinda stuck on how to do what you are saying

I created a new signal called "Resume"

[leaden crane]

Where are you having trouble?

[copper falcon]

I followed what you said and it still doesn't work

for somereason the area function still outputs "[]"

[leaden crane]

Is the get_overlapping_areas() function working properly?

[copper falcon]

Yea, when I put it in the process function it works fine

[leaden crane]

So get_overlapping_areas() doesn't work in validate_placement()?

[copper falcon]

No it returns an empty array

idk why its called after the node is put inside the node tree

[leaden crane]

Try using breakpoints or print statements to determine which functions run first
I don't think I can be of much help other than that

[copper falcon]

Ok

[copper falcon]

I just figured out something

when get_overlapping_areas() is called inside the validate_placement() function

it doesn't appear on the scene despite being inside the node tree

[leaden crane]

What doesn't appear on the scene?

[copper falcon]

The seed scene doesn't appear on the game screen

its not hidden and without the breakpoint after get_overlapping_areas() it appears no problem

[leaden crane]

Your problem may be related to that then

[copper falcon]

Alright ill try to debug further

[copper falcon]

I have no idea what is going on

does get_overlapping_areas() only work when the node is rendered

[warped epoch]

Did you mess with masks or layers any?

[copper falcon]

No they are all on layer one

there is something wrong with the way I'm calling the function atleast I think

Ok so I figured out the problem

get_overlapping_layers occurs during a physic update while _ready() and _on_input_event() runs before the physics update

but how do I fix this?

[leaden crane]

Maybe call it from somewhere else?

Or put
"await ready"
so that, it will continue only after ready function is run

[copper falcon]

wdym

[sonic drift]

i think this got a bit too out of hand.
It is probably easier to just use global variables to keep track of everything important and use that for checks and stuff.

[copper falcon]

what 😭