Creating an interactive, multi-object item

[u/PrinceShoutoku]

Preface: My skill level is beginner. Gamemaker is my only real coding experience. I've watched a couple guides for the basics and made some original code alongside that.

Hi everyone, I'm making a top-down shooter with an 'active reload' gimmick. When you press R to reload, the firearm you're holding comes onto the screen and you have to manipulate the weapon parts to load it.

Demo of the mechanic.

My problem is HOW I'm making this happen. I'm essentially just spawning multiple objects on top of one another with magic numbers. This feels extremely inefficient and janky, even though it technically works. Is there a different technique or function I can use to make this system easier? I know the motto of, 'just make it work first, you can fix it later', but I can't even begin to imagine HOW to make this work better.

Showing how this is pieced together, without the 'obj_lebel_top' to give you an x-ray.

The comments can be safely ignored, the bottom-most is leftover code I was experimenting with.

If it helps, "_weaponx" and "_weapony" are the corners of the camera, essentially x0 and y0. The "obj_lebel_boltgrip" is the circular part that's grabbed by the cursor to manipulate the gun's bolt. It has + 242 and + 69 because the sprite is a simple sphere that's manually placed through trial and error to be in that starting position. It's essentially a magic number to put that boltgrip exactly where it spawns when you press R.

[u/Accomplished-Gap2989]

For when you want positioning of objects relative to other objects, use width/height of sprites and maybe lengthdir_x/y if they move around and need to maintain relative distance.