Problem with renewing values returned from a function

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#1
  1. What do you want to achieve?
    Successfully return a different value from a function every time I execute the function
  2. What is the issue? Include screenshots / videos if possible!
    Basically I am making a function that finds the closest enemy from a tower ( like the ones in tower defense games where it finds the closest enemy ). It does work and finds the closest enemy when I run the function. However, after setting a variable as the closest enemy found from the first execution of the function, it doesn’t “renew” the variable and keeps on thinking the same enemy is the closest one ( which in this case shouldn’t be since I execute the function in a loop every 1 second and it should give me a new closest enemy each time ).
    here is the code of the function findClosestEnemy()
function findClosestEnemy()
	for i, v in ipairs(game.Workspace.Enemies:GetChildren()) do
		if v then
			local enemyHumanoidRoot = v:FindFirstChild("HumanoidRootPart")

			if enemyHumanoidRoot then
				if (enemyHumanoidRoot.Position - towerHumanoidRoot.Position).Magnitude < radius.Value then
					
					local distance = (enemyHumanoidRoot.Position - towerHumanoidRoot.Position).Magnitude
					if distance < nearestDistance then
						nearestDistance = distance
						closest = v
					end
				end
				
			end
			
			return closest
		end
	end
end

here is the code for the loop:

while true do
	local closest = findClosestEnemy()
	wait(1)
	print(closest)
end
  1. What solutions have you tried so far? Did you look for solutions on the Developer Hub?
    I have tried to make it renew the closest enemy everytime by not making a variable closest in the loop everytime, but using an existing variable closest and set the function to the existing variable closest. It does not work. I have tried to print the value closest and see if it does change, it doesn’t.
    Screenshot 2021-12-22 at 3.32.56 PM
    ( as you can see here “normal” is the type of enemy and there are two types, speedy and normal. Every 1 second a speedy should be closer to the tower. The weird part is that I printed the distance that it generated and it DOES show the speedy enemy’s distance is shorter than normal’s distance, but it ignores that and keeps on putting “normal” as the closest enemy )

I searched youtube on tutorials and problems similar to mine but came up with nothing.

( also if I got some formatting wrong or meaning wrong I didn’t mean that. This is my first post in devforum and I would appreciate if somebody can help me with this :slight_smile: )

#3 
if enemyHumanoid then

I don’t see any variable named enemyHumanoid, so the code inside this if will never run. You probably meant if enemyHumanoidRoot then.

Your output shows that only line 68 is printing something, which I assume is that print(closest) in the while loop. The print(v) inside the loop is never running, thus closest never gets updated.

#4

sorry it was a typo, I meant enemyHumanoidRoot. And also I just tried, the print(v) does run ( I think it was some copy and paste problems )… So basically now it still has the problem of not renewing the value closest

#5

OH! I see the problem now.

function findClosestEnemy()
	for i, v in ipairs(game.Workspace.Enemies:GetChildren()) do
		local enemyHumanoidRoot = v:FindFirstChild("HumanoidRootPart")
		
		if enemyHumanoidRoot then
			-- whatever
		end
		return closest -------------------------- THIS!
	end
end

The function returns closest after processing just one enemy, ignoring all others.
Move that return closest one line down and it should work.

#6

Hmmm it doesn’t seem to work, I moved it one line down ( like the code block you sent ), it still doesn’t get a new closest enemy

function findClosestEnemy()
	for i, v in ipairs(game.Workspace.Enemies:GetChildren()) do
		if v then
			local enemyHumanoid = v:FindFirstChild("HumanoidRootPart")

			if enemyHumanoid then
				if (enemyHumanoid.Position - towerHumanoidRoot.Position).Magnitude < radius.Value then
					
					local distance = (enemyHumanoid.Position - towerHumanoidRoot.Position).Magnitude
					if distance < nearestDistance then
						nearestDistance = distance
						closest = v
					end
				end
				
			end
			
			
		end
	return closest
	end
end

:thinking:

#7

I meant two lines down. :pensive: I had removed the if v then around the function because it is completely useless (v cannot be nil), then explained how to fix the code I had, not the code you had.

#8

Thank you so much! It works now! ( now I am having trouble with another issue but I’ll make another post later ) thank you!!!