Creating A Cooldown System in Unity

by Lance Gold

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When firing in a game, there can be a space of time between each shot.

fire, 1,2,3, fire, 1,2,3, fire…. and so on.

From the Scripting API:

Time.time

public static float time;

Description

The time at the beginning of this frame (Read Only).

This is the time in seconds since the start of the application…


//If the Fire1 button is pressed, a projectile
//will be Instantiated every 0.5 seconds.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class Example : MonoBehaviour
{
    public GameObject projectile;
    public float fireRate = 0.5f;
    private float nextFire = 0.0f;

    void Update()
    {
        if (Input.GetButton("Fire1") && Time.time > nextFire)
        {
            nextFire = Time.time + fireRate;
            Instantiate(projectile, transform.position, transform.rotation);
        }
    }
}

Here is the order of precedence:


input.GetButton("Fire1") && ( Time.time > nextFire )

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Setup for first laser fire:


    private float _canfire = -1f;   // negative to okay firing starting out
    if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space ) && ( Time.time > _canfire))
    {
        Instantiate(_laserPrefab, transform.position + _laserStart, Quaternion.identity);
    }

Setup for each next laser fire:


    [SerializeField]
    private float _fireRate = 0.5f;  // space between firing
    private float _canfire = -1f;   // negative to okay firing starting out

Logic for next laser fire:


0.5 > -1?
0.7 > 1.0?
0.9 > 1.0?
1.2 > 1.0?
1.4 > 1.7?
1.6 > 1.7?
1.8 > 1.7?

Here is the code:


if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space ) && ( Time.time > _canfire))
{
    _canfire = Time.time + _fireRate;
    Instantiate(_laserPrefab, transform.position + _laserStart, Quaternion.identity);
}