Using shared variables instead of global variables

[GuyM142]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I don't see the connection between state machines and global variables. A state machine keeps its own state, and shouldn't need to share it with anything else, right?

If it's just persistent storage you're looking for, I suggest putting the state machine inside a single-run While with a shift register. There are at least three other ways I can think of to do what I assume you want, including local variables.

Some state machines do different things depending on the state of other state machines, so I use global variables in order to read other state machines' current state.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by GuyM142

Some state machines do different things depending on the state of other state machines,...

That sounds like it could get confusing. No wonder you're having difficulty finding things. I can understand how it can be helpful to encapsulate groups of states into their own machine, but you probably see now that it's often a false optimization to do it from the bottom up (or the inside out, depending on your perspective).

I know there's not a lot of time left, and you've probably put a lot of effort into what you already have, so I won't seriously suggest refactoring your code so there aren't so many intersystem connections. But next time you do something similar, I hope you'll be able to come up with a less tangled architecture.