At the suggestion of fellow forumers, I am using this for a game I am programming:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... estudio.31).aspx

It is working great, but I'm having a little trouble figuring out just what does and doesn't need to be done here. The primary problem is all the tutorials for this try to do way more than what I want done. What I need to know is what is the bare minimum I need to implement the shot mechanic. And how would I code it? All I want is:

-The shot comes from the player object itself, not an additional gun object (as I don't intend to implement that)
-The shot is culled when it either collides with an enemy or leaves the screen, but not with a tile. It should appear in the foreground.
-The shot reads its direction from a variable, with a default setting to right. I don't need to know how to alter its direction as I can take care of that myself.
-The shot appears on screen.

I just want to get it functioning so I can see it in game without a crash. As long I can do that, I'll gladly work out the details myself.

Have you seen this?

_________________
Bored? Head on over to my blog and see what I'm up to.

Microsoft XNA MVP

Yes and it is exactly what I am NOT looking for, hence my emphasis on the shot coming from the player object, not an additional arm. As well, I also emphasized not adding in the directional aim, as I intend to use a very different method, I was really hoping those hints would cause me to not get linked to that. I mean, I could use it, but for everything I'd have to overhaul, I may as well do it from scratch.

I do appreciate the attempt at helping, but I need something which addresses the specifics of the original post.

Make a bullet class that has a Texture2D texture, Vector2 position, Vector2 velocity, Vector2 direction, Rectangle rectangle, and float speed.

When the bullet is fired, create one and add it to a list and loop through it to update each bullet and to check for collisions against each enemy.

-The shot comes from the player object itself, not an additional gun object (as I don't intend to implement that)

*When whatever button is pressed that you want to fire a bullet, initialize the bullets position to the players position.

-The shot is culled when it either collides with an enemy or leaves the screen, but not with a tile. It should appear in the foreground.

*If an active bullet intersects with an enemy rectangle remove it from the list of active bullets. To check if its left the screen again use rectangle collision against the camera/viewport rectangle

-The shot reads its direction from a variable, with a default setting to right. I don't need to know how to alter its direction as I can take care of that myself.

*Use a Vector2 in the bullet class for direction. Set its x to 1 in the constructor. Use a formula like position += direction * speed * (float)gameTime.ElapsedTime.TotalSeconds;

-The shot appears on screen.

*Loop through the list of active bullets in the draw method and draw the bullets texture at the bullets position.