Piecewise Random

It worked!

Thank you for responding so quickly!

Hello! I want to add a random that keeps my CuiserWingmen from overlapping the Cruiser itself.

I added this:

I am not sure if "|" works in this case as an "or". I just read somewhere that it is what construct uses for "or".

Any help much appreciated.

AllanR already solved this but another way you can do this if you want to be a little more DRY is

Set GotoX to Cruiser.x + (choose(-1, 1) * random(20,40))

As for expressions and the " | " operator I used to get really confused too. This is how they work

Set X to 2 = 1 ? 5 : -5

This can be translated to: Is 2 equal to 1? If yes, return 5. If no, return -5

Ah yes AllanR gave me the solution I needed. I need something extra, though. The distribution I have right now is like this:

The cruiser is green, and the red is approximately the distribution of the wingmen.

I need something like this:

Thank you all for your help!

whoops yes

This is what I needed

If you don't mind the distribution being more of a circle than a square you can do:

angleVariable

Set AngleVariable to random(360)

set X to cruiser.X + 40*cos(AngleVariable)

Set Y to cruiser.y + 40*sin(AngleVariable)

This will position the wingmen randomly around the ship in a circle with a distance of 40pixels

how many wingmen can there be? is there a minimum distance you want between wingmen?

and the wingmen have to be anywhere on the red line?

(it would be a lot easier to evenly distribute the wingmen on a circle around the cruiser)

first I would have a variable named WingmanOffset to define how far out the box is from the cruiser.

WingmanOffset = 40 (each side of the square will be 2 x the offset)

then choose which line of the box the wingman is on (Top, Bottom, Left, Right), and pick a random point on that line.

if Top then Y = -WingmanOffset, X=random(2 x WingmanOffset) - WingmanOffset

if Bottom then Y = WingmanOffset, X=random(2 x WingmanOffset) - WingmanOffset

if Left then X = -WingmanOffset, Y=random(2 x WingmanOffset) - WingmanOffset

if Right then X = WingmanOffset, Y=random(2 x WingmanOffset) - WingmanOffset

EDIT: I should have refreshed! :) NOAH is right, the other advantage of a circle is that you can space the wingmen an equal number of degrees apart.

First, noah, that idea sounds great! I would definitely prefer the wingmen to be in a circle, but if it wasn't possible, I would go with the alternative.

Also, AllanR, your solution is also something I wanted to add (if I am reading this right). If the wingman is on the left side of the ship, then tween only to another point on the left side. If it is in a corner, pick the sides it is on. This keeps the wingmen from traveling across the center in an x shaped pattern.

Furthermore, the project you posted I am unable to run. Construct crashes every time I try to run it (is it possible it is because the project was made in a beta version?)