I have come up with the solution to what I wanted to achieve.
As usual, it is simple and I am kicking myself for not considering it from the start. I was too distracted in my thinking and was not considering an alternative method.
All that was needed was to use polymorphism to access the ACharacter class functions and variables in the UE generated Character class and add additional code as follows.
In the extended ACharacter_extension class add a pointer variable of type ACharacter
class myUEprojectname_API ACharacter_extension
{
Public:
ACharacter *character;
ACharacter_extension();
~ACharacter_extension();
}
In the Amy_Character class generated by the UE editor class wizard, add a variable of type ACharacter_extension
class myUEprojectname_API Amy_Character : public ACharacter
{
Public:
ACharacter_extension Character_extension;
and in the constructor of Amy_Character have the assignment
Character_extension.character = this;
now the ACharacter_extension class can access all the ACharacter variables and funtions etc. of the Amy_Character class by simply referring to them as character->varaible_name, character->function_name etc.
In the Amy_Character class, to call these functions, use the expression
Character_extension.Function_Name;
It may not be the best way to do this but it works and gets the result I want which is not to have to have unnecessary functions and variables passing parameters and reassigning values in the Amy_Character class generated by UE. I have more to test using this technique as it was in the last hour of the day yesterday that I came up with this, but it looks to be promising and the way to go.