I am creating a Finite State Machine for use in Unity for an enemy in a game.

All the states are made from an EmptyState.cs blueprint that defines the state exit, update, and start functions, and all states are derived from it.

In my FSM core, I have a dictionary reference to all states, and the current state;

private Dictionary<Type, EmptyState> amalgamStates;

public EmptyState currentState;

The dictionary, looks like this;

Dictionary<Type, EmptyState> states = new Dictionary<Type, EmptyState>
{
    {typeof(RoamingState), new RoamingState() },
    {typeof(IdleState), new IdleState() },
    {typeof(StalkingState), new StalkingState() },
    {typeof(HuntingState), new HuntingState() },
    {typeof(HauntingState), new HauntingState() },
    {typeof(LeavingState), new LeavingState() }
};

However, when I assign a state to currentState, it always sets as null.

 private void Update()
 {
     if (currentState == null)
     {
         currentState = amalgamStates.Values.First(); **<--- here**
         Debug.Log(currentState); 
         currentState.stateStart(amalgamBrain);
     }
     //Run state's update and store output (output will be next state)
     var temp = currentState.stateUpdate(amalgamBrain);

     //If the stored state is different -> switch states to new state
     if (temp != currentState.GetType())
     {
         switchStates(temp);
     }
 }

Debug.Log(currentState); always returns null. I can’t even set the variable manually in the unity inspector.

I know that this should work, as I am working from a project of a similar framework that works fine, so I’m just making a dumb mistake somewhere. Does anyone have any ideas? Here is the entirety of EmptyState.cs to anyone curious.

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class EmptyState : MonoBehaviour
{
    public AmalgamCentralAI amalgamBrain;

    public virtual void stateStart(AmalgamCentralAI amalgamBrain) { }
    public virtual Type stateUpdate(AmalgamCentralAI amalgamBrain) { return null; }
    public virtual void stateExit(AmalgamCentralAI amalgamBrain) { }
}
``