how to make sprites stick together in game maker?

Question

I don't know how to get sprites to stick to each other so they become one big object instead of tiny little pieces, for example:

attaching a thruster to a box, then the thruster stays in that spot while pushing the box, and also is there a certain term for what I'm talking about?

Answer 1

You could also attach all parts to one of the objects, it would sort of look like:

//Main object x = 5; y = 20;

//other object step event
x = obj_main.x + <any value to put it where you want>;
y = obj_main.y + <any value to put it where you want>;

//This will force the parts to follow the main object.

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Answer 2

what I did was make the object disabled, so when I press left and right it doesn't go anywhere, only the other piece would move, but when it came into contact it allowed the other piece to move along with it, and set its speed to the corresponding objects speed, in simpler term, when I collide with it, it turns the movement on and goes in the same direction as the current object in the same speed, making it look like its sticking

Answer 3

You can use an array, defined in the 'main' object to use a sort of grid to define where each piece is and then either draw each individual sprite, based on its position in the array, originating from the 'main' object's coordinates. Or just create an individual instance of an object if you would like to have additional functionality by trading off some performance.

For more information on arrays and how to position sprites and objects based on set coordinates, check out the GML documentation provided below:

Arrays: https://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospice/002_reference/001_gml%20language%20overview/401_06_arrays.html

lengthdir: https://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospice/002_reference/maths/real%20valued%20functions/lengthdir_x.html