Question

I am new to working in ActionScript and I’m experimenting with using the Timeline to trigger certain events in my game. In particular, I’m using the timeline to trigger the fire event for a gun so that when the fire animation gets to a certain frame, a bullet is spawned. In the gun class (Enter_Frame) I check that the mouse is being held down and the time between the last shot and the current time is longer than the cool down, if everything checks out I play the animation.

if (time - lastShot > cooldown)
{
    canShoot = true;
    lastShot = time;
}
if (mouseHold && canShoot)
{
    play();
}

This creates a problem when the frame rate is brought below the point where the full animation cannot be played before the cool down is up again. In this instance the bullets fire slower with lower frame rates.

In addition, higher frame rates make the gun more responsive to mouse input because the fire frame comes sooner than in lower frame rates.

The goal is obviously to make the game completely frame rate independent. I would like to have the ability to slow down or speed up the frame rate of the animation depending on the cool down of the gun.

What is the best way to make this animation play in a specific time period without skipping over the actions that I have put into the timeline?

Answer 1

It sounds like you’re on the right track, but approaching this the wrong way. Check out the Timer class, it’s framerate independent, and will greatly aid you.

var my_timer = new Timer(1000,0); //in milliseconds
my_timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, catchTimer);
my_timer.start();


function catchTimer(e:TimerEvent)
{
     trace("event fired");
}