Need to alter Z axis on gameObject when localScale is changed

Hello good people of the Unity Community

I'm thoroughly enjoying getting back to Unity and C# after a long absense. I'm usually used to VB and even then its mostly straight-forward stuff (self-taught).

Now I'm making a Arknoid clone and I'm trying to do a simple "perk" where the player (i.e. paddle) can either get enlarged or minimized.

So far so good...I've created a capsule that, when triggered, will either enlarge or minimize the paddles localScale by 1.5f along the Z-axis.

However, on either side of the paddle is a wall / bumbstop. My problem is thus: when the paddle minimzed AND happens to be in contact with the wall when the paddle is reset to its original wider state, the paddle will overlap the wall and get stuck.

I figure the solution is to check the paddle.transform.position for its current position and then move the paddle along its Z-axis enough for it to safely grow back to its original scale.

Trouble is, I can't really figure out how. I can set three totally new vector variables by doing a transform.position = new Vector3 (5,5,5), but that's not what I want. I simply need to nudge or move it out of harms way by about 1.5f either left or right (depending on if the paddle is near the left or right wall.

Help?

 

You got two walls, left and right. Right?
Hence you can define pad location, on which side closest wall is.
Then get position (distance) to the wall.
If distance is less than scaling halve of factor, do nudge.
Your nudge distance will be halve of scaling factor - position to the wall.

So basically,
if your distance to wall is 2 and halve of scaling factor is 3, then 4 - 3 = 1.
Hence move by 1 away from a wall.

That should be it.

 

Think I got it Much obliged, mate!