How to assign an exported variable when instantiating a scene in a script

[Joshua_Bradshaw]

Godot Version

4.3

Question

I’m an absolute beginner and I’m using Godot 4.3, GDScript. Trying to add a spawning system for enemies in a 2D game, but currently i have a variable named ‘Player’ exported, in which I have to assign the player node (named ‘player’) so that the path finding knows what to track. Using a script to spawn these enemies only shows errors because when they instantiate a new enemy to spawn, the enemy has no player node assigned. How do i make the script auto assign it to the player. The player is a child of the main level node. The enemy is its own scene with a pathfinding script. Please tell me if i need to provide more information. I’ve asked previously on reddit, but i didn’t understand the answers so if you could tell me where to put lines of code etc that would be great.

main level script with the spawning: SCRIPT ATTACHED TO MAIN LEVEL NODE - Pastebin.com

enemy script with the pathfinding: SCRIPT ATTACHED TO ENEMY NODE - Pastebin.com

[jesusemora]

that’s not how you are supposed to use exports.

there are much better ways to tell an enemy where the player is.

1 - with groups, put the player node into a group, call it something like “player”. then in the enemy assign a var in ready.

Groups

var player

func _ready() -> void:
	var player_nodes : Array[Node] = get_tree().get_nodes_in_group("player")
	if not player_nodes.is_empty():#there are nodes in player group
		player = player_nodes[0]#get first element

2 - other ways could be with an autoload or using an Area as line of sight for the enemy, which is useful in stealth or stealth adjacent games.