How do I shmup enemy ballet

Hey guys.

I'm trying to make a SHMUP game, and I have a problem, I can't get the enemy ships to move in a coordinated way like in traditional SHMUP games. I've been trying for days and I can't make groups of ships that move neatly around the screen and then out.

I also didn't find tutorials about it. I'm lost. Does anyone have experience with this and manage to shed some light on this issue?

If you figure out how to make a single one move the way you want it to, then you can make a group or line of them as well by applying the same movement with a time delay between spawning each instance. Try every x seconds or use the timer behavior.

Yes. I made a function to create the groups (say 5 enemies lined up vertically) and my idea is that when they are created they would have a boolean variable (active/disabled) to tell if they are active or not and then they would be able to to make the move. The problem is that I don't know how to make this move like the games from 10, 20 years ago =(

A few weeks ago I tried the same thing too, I came to the conclusion that the best ways are pathfinding or / and waypoints.

You have to do several tests, because filling the screen with (invisible) walls for the path of the ships does not allow them to go through the same points in a different way, and sometimes adjust the pathfinding options to make them flow better, especially when turning.

But with a little bit of proof you can get something decent

You have many options, including pathfinding, waypoints, tweens, simulated 8direction movement, sine behavior, or any combination of the above. However there is no set guide or tutorial, since only you know how exactly you want your objects to move and path.

Focus on getting one instance to move the way you want, making a group follow the same path will be trivial.

I hadn't thought of waypoints. I don't know how they work actually. I will try to learn and try, is it the most practical way? Thinking about a game with many waves of enemies...

dropbox.com/s/bcigads5c9w4d07/qarpline.c3p

I haven't done much development using timelines yet, but would they be effective for something like this as well? Essentially creating different movement patterns for particular enemies using different timelines?

I'm working on several SHMUP games. My first title(vertical scrolling), just has them moving straight down the screen.

Ah yes timelines do seem perfectly suited for this, didn't cross my mind since I've never really used them.

Ah yes timelines do seem perfectly suited for this, didn't cross my mind since I've never really used them.

Same here

I need to spend more time playing around in the timeline editor, and learning the ins and outs. I watched a couple videos on YouTube some weeks back, and it seems similar to other timeline editors I've used in other engines. Some aspects seem to be easier with Construct though, which is always awesome.

Never hurts to experiment :)

dropbox.com/s/bcigads5c9w4d07/qarpline.c3p

But with this method you can't add more than 3 points in the same event right?

Is there a way to make the object keep the same speed all the way? I see that if you make a sharper corner the speed decreases when cornering

But with this method you can't add more than 3 points in the same event right?

Cubic()

Is there a way to make the object keep the same speed all the way? I see that if you make a sharper corner the speed decreases when cornering

Its interpolation with easing so you would need a different method that puts the points equidistant. Or you could average that yourself, but we don't have a good data structure to handle that, at least not in a way that makes sense. Then again its exactly 5 seconds.

Then again you could cheat and use the Moveto behavior.

dropbox.com/s/f2grllq8wmj04xn/qarpmoveto.c3p