2D Gear Box Movement

Hi all,

I'm looking to create a very simple 2D gear stick which is draggable into the correct gear positions (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Here is an image of what I mean:

Gear 1 - https://imgur.com/GmcIvf1
Gear 2 - https://imgur.com/Fj3KD4W
Gear 3 - https://imgur.com/q5zlhbf

etc.

I have a script which allows the red 'gear stick' to be draggable, however I don't know how to keep it within the bounds of the gear guide (the grey lines).

Would be very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.

Many thanks,
Farid

 

If you can drag it, then you have to restrict the movement to form the shape of the gearbox. So if it's in position one, it can only go down until a junction or the position 2. That's the only way I can think of.

 

I don't feel like this gives me enough information to do it

 

You didn't give any code, which makes anything more virtually impossible.

 

This would be a more complicated case of dragging along a line, so I'd do it in stages:
Step 1: Drag a slider along a line. I think you'd just need to project the mouse position onto the line and then clamp it between the two endpoints.
Step 2: Have multiple lines, and have zones (a small square) in which you can swap between them. Probably something like, while inside the zone, determine which axis the user's attempted movement is closer to (or which projected position is closer to the mouse position) and switch which one is the "active" line accordingly.
Step 3: That's only going to cover straight line movement with sharp corners, so if you want curved movement you'll need to handle that differently.

 

I thought about this and tried to make a mock design. At the "intersections" and ends, I created small box collider2ds with pointer drag and enter methods. I had an list of allowed connections, so if you began dragging from any intersection you were allowed to go to any one that was next in the path.
It's not perfect, because the gear/knob doesn't actually move when you move, but it was a simple example. I added a swift 'movement' after any valid pointer enter (while dragging) to simulate the knob moving along into position.