Up to now, I have been working with blueprints and have a reasonable understanding of how the engine and components work.
I would like to use Unreal engine for my A-level coursework
The specification for my course states that this is only allowed if you use a text-based language (in this case c++)
I currently have no c++ experience although I have used multiple other languages (python, c#, vb.NET) in the past and am generally a fast learner for these things.
How would you recommend I make the transition from coding with blueprints to C++ for the majority of my future projects?
Do you know of any good tutorials aimed at someone with my level of experience?
You could start by studying classes in the GameFramework folder like Actor, Controller, GameMode and HUD. The good thing about Unreal Engine is that nothing is a secret so if you can read the source code and learn from it so that you can use it in your project code.
Since you already know Blueprint you will know what can be done and since every built-in node in Blueprint is made in C++ you can look it up and learn what the Blueprint nodes actually do behind the scenes.
I recommend Tom Looman’s Unreal Engine 4 Mastery: Create Multiplayer Games with C++ Create Multiplayer Games with C++: Unreal Engine Mastery | Udemy which is beginner friendly and also covers AI in UE4. Although, it uses Behavior Tree for AI which is not completly C++ but once you’ve learned that you could also implement similar behavior using a finitie state machine. There is also a good plugin for FSM available on the market place which supports both C++ and Blueprints UFSM State-Machine in Code Plugins - UE Marketplace and dev is active on the forums too.