Superclass to subclass (I think)

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

So I have a lobby where I hold a list of the type Player.
Now when the player decides to play a game it can choose a class such as Heavy, Sniper and Assault.
The classes Heavy, Sniper and Assault are subclasses of the type Player.
So a logical thing would be to do upon pressing the play button “player = new Heavy();”
This however does not give me the attributes I had set in the player object.
For example:
I call the function player.setRoom(someroom);
Then the player chooses the Heavy class.
player = new Heavy();
Now I call player.getRoom().update/render ();
but player.getRoom() is now null.

I don’t want to do this in the Heavy constructor:
Heavy(Player player) {
room = player.getRoom();
}
I’m looking for an OO solution

#2

when you call

player = new Heavy();

you are throwing away the old player and all of it’s data, so the newly constructed player is not going to have a room set.

Two options would be to have:

player = new Heavy(player.getRoom());

and set the room in the constructor.

Or, you can just not create the player object at all until a class has been selected and then set the room.

#3

The 1st solution is what I want to avoid, it would be my last choice if any other.
I need to store some fields in the player object so the 2nd solution won’t work.

#4

Ok, there are three more options I can think of then.

First, create a PlayerData class that contains the data for a player that you need to store before you create it, then call
player = new Heavy(PlayerData);
to instantiate the object.

Second, not have subclasses for each of the different classes and rather just have a variable that can either be HEAVY, SNIPER, or ASSAULT. Then when you know what class it will be call
player.clazz = HEAVY;

Third, if you feel like you need there to be subclasses, you could set up a sort of factory for the player, then call
PlayerFactory.createHeavy(allTheDataYouNeed);
In there you can construct a heavy using all the data, however this is very similar to my first idea. Up to preference really

#5

Differantiate between the player and the game character the player chooses.
Create a player object and assign the chosen character later.
Neither inherits player the character nor the character the player.

#6

I agree with @65K. The Player you describe is more like a Session. This Session might include your Profile and the room you joined.
The Heavy, Assault and Sniper instead are part of the game itself. The should probably have a shape used for collision detection, a weapon and i guess they should react to user input.
If you want to show the name in the chat or whereever, you can simply use the Session and use it’s name.

#7

Why are the different player types subclasses of Player?

I would just make that an attribute of the Player class. Something like this:

public class Player{
   enum PlayerClass{
      HEAVY, SNIPER, ASSAULT, KITTEN;
   }

   PlayerClass myClass;

   public void setPlayerClass(PlayerClass pc){
      myClass = pc;
      //maybe set other attributes that depend on class?
   }
}

In other words, favor composition over inheritance.

#8

Ah this clears my mind up a bit. I was told to use inheritance when I posted a thread about this.
It’s all clear now, I agree the Player is more like a Session :slight_smile:
Thanks for the help