- Home /
Waiting for fractions of a Second
I'm trying to make a laser that shoots 3 shots every 3 seconds(but with just a tiny delay between shots). I have got the laser shooting, but I don't understand how to add the delay to the shot. I tried using a delay method WaitForSeconds but it crashes the game(stuck in an infinite loop somehow?). amnt is preset to 3.
private void fire(int amnt)
{
for(int x = 0; x < amnt; x++)
{
while(!canShoot)
{
//wait until timer goes
}
pos = gun.transform.position;
Instantiate(laser, pos, Quaternion.LookRotation(player.transform.position - pos + new Vector3(0, 1.5f, 0)));
canShoot = false;
StartCoroutine(waitBetweenShots());
}
}
IEnumerator waitBetweenShots()
{
yield return new WaitForSeconds(.1f);
canShoot = true;
}
}
Answer by jdean300 · Feb 13, 2017 at 05:12 PM
This isn't going to work because you are starting 3 coroutines in the same frame. Additionally, unless your "wait until timer goes" comment is hiding other code, that while loop will be an infinite loop. Once you get into the while loop, you cannot leave. This is because coroutines are still executed on the main thread, just possibly at a later time. You cannot have a coroutine running simultaneously with your other code (well, you can, but there are a ton of limitations and generally it's not done). What you want is something like this:
private void fire(int amount) {
StartCoroutine(FireShots(amount));
}
private IEnumerator FireShots(int num){
for (int i = 0; i < num; i++){
pos = gun.transform.position;
Instantiate(laser, pos, Quaternion.LookRotation(player.transform.position - pos + new Vector3(0, 1.5f, 0)));
yield return new WaitForSeconds(.1f);
}
}
To avoid garbage from the Coroutine you could simply use invoke like this.
public void RepeatFire(float fireRate, int fireCount)
{
for (int i = 1; i < fireCount + 1; i++)
{
Invoke("Fire", fireRate * i);
}
}
private void Fire()
{
pos = gun.transform.position;
Instantiate(laser, pos, Quaternion.LookRotation(player.transform.position - pos + new Vector3(0, 1.5f, 0)));
}
Isn't that going to fire 3 projectiles at the same time? He wants 3 projectiles fired one right after the other in rapid succession. Granted, your script can be modified to do that pretty easily, still without the garbage of a coroutine. I'm not convinced this would be faster though - since you're passing a string as the method to call, it has to either use reflection or have cached delegates to call (I hope Unity does this...). Even in the delegate case, I doubt it would perform that much better than the coroutine. I'll have to test that out...
EDIT: Ahh, you edited the code, now your solution will fire them one after the other.
yes I have edited the code to properly fire one after another.
In my own tests Invoke is pretty fast so something other than pure reflection must be going on behind the scenes in Unity 5.5+. Coroutines can be effective but in my tests they are slower than Invoke when a lot of Coroutines are started.
Your answer
Follow this Question
Related Questions
Wait for seconds question 1 Answer
OnTriggerEnter launching a delayed tween 1 Answer
I want to create a pause in between spawning objects in a row 2 Answers
Multiple Cars not working 1 Answer
Distribute terrain in zones 3 Answers