Cannot implicitly convert type 'UnityEngine.Vector3' to 'Vector3'

Question

I've defined an abstract method in an abstract class with a generic return type. However, when I try to use the generic type as a Vector3 (or any other variable) I get this error :

Cannot implicitly convert type 'UnityEngine.Vector3' to 'Vector3'

this is my code : the error is in the line

return direction;

using UnityEngine;


public class DashAbility : Ability
{

    public Vector3 direction;

    public override Vector3 getAbilityData<Vector3>()
    {
        return direction;
    }

    public override bool trigger(pointerData pointer)
    {
        return InputMaster.tryPointer(rollInputTest);
    }

    bool rollInputTest(pointerData p)
    {
        return (p.phase == pointerPhase.Dragging) && p.startHit.collider.CompareTag("Player");
    }
}

and this is the class I'm deriving from:

using UnityEngine;

public abstract class Ability : MonoBehaviour
{
    public abstract bool trigger(pointerData pointer);
    public abstract T getAbilityData<T>() ;
}

Answer 1

When you write this:

public override Vector3 getAbilityData<Vector3>()
{
    return direction;
}

It wants to override from this:

public abstract T getAbilityData<T>() ;

In this function, <T> is a placeholder that represents "Some arbitrary type I'll call T".

So in order to match this, the compiler has to interpret the <Vector3> as "Some arbitrary type I'll call Vector3" - ie. it's no longer referring to the type UnityEngine.Vector3, it's just using the string of characters "Vector3" to serve as a placeholder for this arbitrary type, matching the parent.

Naturally, there's no implicit conversion available from a real actual UnityEngine.Vector3 and this arbitrary type that we're just calling "Vector3", but could just as easily be an int or a bool or...

It looks like what you meant instead was something like this:

// "There are different kinds of ability, each with their own data type"
public abstract class Ability<T> : MonoBehaviour
{
    public abstract bool trigger(pointerData pointer);

    // "The getAbilityData method returns an instance of this particular ability's data type"
    public abstract T getAbilityData();
}

// "DashAbility is an Ability that uses Vector3 data"
public class DashAbility : Ability<Vector3>
{    
    public Vector3 direction;

    public override Vector3 getAbilityData()
    {
        return direction;
    }

    // ...
}

Here we've constrained T to be one specific type for each derived form of Ability. For DashAbility, it's UnityEngine.Vector3, so now DashAbility.getAbilityData() no longer has to have versions to handle any arbitrary type, only the real actual Vector3 version.