How to implement movement? Tick? Timer? Other?

Development Programming & Scripting C++
1

Hi
What I implemented is custom grid map, also I have implemented Theta* algo for pathfinding which returns vector of points which unit should follow. What would be best way to implement movement of this character?
Additional requirements are that during movement path can be updated. what I tried is something like this

void AMyPawn::OnPathFound(const TArray<FVector> waypoints, bool sucess)
{
	FScopeLock Lock(&PathMutex);
	pathToFollow.Empty();
	pathToFollow = waypoints;
	waypoint = pathToFollow[0];
	waypointIndex = 0;
	pathUpdated = true;
}

void AMyPawn::Tick(float DeltaTime)
{
	Super::Tick(DeltaTime);
	if (pathUpdated)
	{
		UpdatePath();
	}
	if (movePawn)
	{
		UpdatePawnLocation(DeltaTime);
	}
}

Reason why OnPathFound is that this path is calculated by other thread and then returned by Promise to this function

Promise->GetFuture().Next([unitToMove](const TArray<FVector> path)
	{
		if (path.Num())
		{
			unitToMove->OnPathFound(path, true);
		}
		else
		{
			UE_LOG(LogTemp, Warning, TEXT("There are no points in path"));
		}
	});

Problem is that OnPathFound and TIck can cause data races, so I put Lock into Tick, but this way Tick is never unlocked and other thread can never update this path.

Would it be better solution to use Timers? when OnPathFound is call it stops timer, and after updating timer is resumed?

2

it depends on your system, for instance if you’re using the Character movement you should just use tick since it needs it anyway.

if say you have a turn based game then maybe you could just use a timer for just when its moving.

also consider then number of Pawns you intend to have, if its not too many then the answer doesnt really matter.