The right way to specify UObject subclasses properties

Development Programming & Scripting C++
1

Hello, I’m writing a weapon system where each weapon can mount a module that defines weapon stats and other info (like muzzle particle system).
I want to create a lot of these modules and each module might have some specific functionalities triggered by the weapon (so I cannot think about these modules just as configurations).

I have a huge doubt about the architecture that I’m using here… this is what I wanted to achieve:

  • A base UWeaponModule class from which the various modules inherit
  • Each module can override base class values and behaviors

That being said, overriding the behaviors is quite simple since I can just override functions, but how can I override values? the only solution I found is to handle values as inline functions and have these functions returning the value… so that I can override these functions in the subclasses.

Here is an example of the base class… it defines a weapon that does a damage of 100, uses a specific particle system as the muzzle effect and cannot shoot bursts.


UCLASS()
class THEMIR_API UWeaponModule : public UObject
{
    GENERATED_BODY()

public:

    virtual bool burst() {
        return false
    }

    virtual float getDamage() {
        return 100.0f;
    }

    virtual FString getMuzzleEffectPath() {
        return  "/Game/Assets/Particles/Impacts/Particles/P_MuzzleSimple.P_MuzzleSimple";
    }

    virtual void fire(); // each module might have a different fire behavior.

};

Now I can easily subclass this class with an object that uses bursts, with a damage of 300 and so on…

I’m wondering if this is a good way to handle this logic… using a function to define what normally I’d define as a simple variable sounds a little bit strange to me.

2

That doesn’t make any sense to me.
UObject instances are serializable, everything there can simple be variables instead of those weird functions.

3

Thank you, how would you handle subclassing? How do you define the default value of a variable in a subclass? you cannot override class member variables…

Let’s say that now that I have the base class I wanted to create a subclass module, I can easily write its properties specification this way:


virtual float getDamage() **override **{ return 400.0f; }

I can’t find a way to obtain the same result without using functions… that is why I have written this question, any suggestions to improve this logic would be really appreciated.

4

All classes and child classes default objects can have their own default values serialized independently.

All child classes can set their own defaults in their constructors.

6

OK you are probably suggesting something like:



UCLASS()
class THEMIR_API UWeaponModule :
    public UObject {    
    GENERATED_BODY()  
    public:    
    UWeaponModule(){
        isBurst = false;
        damage = 100.0f;
        getMuzzleEffectPath = "/Game/Assets/Particles/Impacts/Particles/P_MuzzleSimple.P_MuzzleSimple";
    }
 . . . .  
 . . . .
 . . . .
 . . . .
};

sounds definitely better than what I’ve written. Thanks!