Player dash script not working.

This script, PlayerDash is intended to move the player forward towards the direction of the mouse when they press Space.

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4.  
5. public class PlayerDash : MonoBehaviour
6. {
7.     PlayerMovement playerMovement;
8.     [SerializeField] GameObject player;
9.  
10.     public Rigidbody2D rb;
11.     public ParticleSystem dash;
12.  
13.     public float dashSpeed = 2f;
14.     public float dashLength = 1f;
15.     public float dashCooldown = 1f;
16.     public Vector2 dashForce;
17.  
18.     private float dashCounter;
19.     private float cooldownCounter;
20.  
21.     void Awake()
22.     {
23.         playerMovement = player.GetComponent<PlayerMovement>();
24.     }
25.  
26.     void Update()
27.     {
28.         if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
29.         {
30.             Dash();
31.         }
32.     }
33.  
34.     void FixedUpdate()
35.     {
36.  
37.         if (dashCounter > 0)
38.         {
39.             dashCounter -= Time.deltaTime;
40.  
41.             if (dashCounter <= 0)
42.             {
43.                 cooldownCounter = dashCooldown;
44.                 GetComponent<CircleCollider2D>().enabled = true;
45.             }
46.         }
47.  
48.         if (cooldownCounter > 0)
49.         {
50.             cooldownCounter -= Time.deltaTime;
51.         }
52.     }
53.  
54.     void Dash()
55.     {
56.         if (dashCounter <= 0 && cooldownCounter <= 0)
57.         {
58.             dashForce = new Vector2(playerMovement.lookDir.x * dashSpeed * 100, playerMovement.lookDir.y * dashSpeed * 100);
59.             rb.velocity += dashForce;
60.             dashCounter = dashLength;
61.             GetComponent<CircleCollider2D>().enabled = false;
62.             dash.Play();
63.         }
64.     }
65. }
66.  
67.  

I cannot tell why this doesn't work, and I am not understanding how to fix it despite everything I look up. I have no clue what's not working.

I am going to chalk it up to my general inexperience with C# and a lack of a morning coffee. Thanks ahead of time to anyone who can help me out.

 

You must find a way to get the information you need in order to reason about what the problem is.

What is often happening in these cases is one of the following:

- the code you think is executing is not actually executing at all
- the code is executing far EARLIER or LATER than you think
- the code is executing far LESS OFTEN than you think
- the code is executing far MORE OFTEN than you think
- the code is executing on another GameObject than you think it is
- you're getting an error or warning and you haven't noticed it in the console window

To help gain more insight into your problem, I recommend liberally sprinkling Debug.Log() statements through your code to display information in realtime.

Doing this should help you answer these types of questions:

- is this code even running? which parts are running? how often does it run? what order does it run in?
- what are the values of the variables involved? Are they initialized? Are the values reasonable?
- are you meeting ALL the requirements to receive callbacks such as triggers / colliders (review the documentation)

Knowing this information will help you reason about the behavior you are seeing.

You can also put in Debug.Break() to pause the Editor when certain interesting pieces of code run, and then study the scene

You could also just display various important quantities in UI Text elements to watch them change as you play the game.

If you are running a mobile device you can also view the console output. Google for how on your particular mobile target.

Another useful approach is to temporarily strip out everything besides what is necessary to prove your issue. This can simplify and isolate compounding effects of other items in your scene or prefab.

Here's an example of putting in a laser-focused Debug.Log() and how that can save you a TON of time wallowing around speculating what might be going wrong:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/coroutine-missing-hint-and-error.1103197/#post-7100494