Creating a spawn actor that will increase spawn rate with time

sandman

Hi all,

I want to create an actor that spawns actors at random intervals.
My questions are:
1- How can I make the rate of spawning increase as time goes by?
2- How to prevent the actor from spawning two actors at the same time?

Braydon_SFX

Hi,

You can create an integer attribute called HowManySeconds and set it to 2, for example.
Then put a timer in an actor that says:

Timer, every (hit the little "e") game.HowManySeconds
Spawn actor: (Whatever)
Plug in your X and Y cords.

Next, in an actor off screen so the player cannot see it, put:

Timer:
Every 30 seconds (or whatever)
Change attribute: game.HowManySeconds to 1

This will change the spawn rate from 2 seconds to one second. You can play and tweak this of course.

Hope this helps.

gyroscope

Hi @sandman

As far as I can make out, two of your requests: "spawn actors at random intervals" and spawning increasing as time goes by" are at odds with each other....

So I'm going to assume that you won't need any random here, just spawn rate increasing, one spawned at a time, and so that there is no multiple spawning, as you also want.

I'm also assuming that when it reaches the fastest spawn rate possible without more than one actor spawning at the same time, you can, at the end, still have spawns but at a regular interval... hope I've explained that well enough, please correct me if i'm wrong.

OK, if that's what you're after, make an integer attribute called CountDown, its value set to 20, as an example. (All figures will have to be adjusted depending on the rate increase and start interval you're after).

Then make another attribute, index this time, let's call it DecTime. Set it's value to 5.25 (assuming the first interval is 5 seconds, and the speedup of time is less .25 second every time).

So, also assuming you want this to happen straightaway when the scene starts, put an actor onscreen but outside of the play area, with Rules:

Spawn Actor relative to scene
Positions set to random
Rule
When scene.countdown = 0
Timer Every .25 second
Spawn Actor relative to scene
Positions set to random

And in the prototype of the actor you want spawned:

Change attribute scene.Countdown to Countdown -1
Change attribute scene.DecTime to DecTime -0.25

Rule: When scene.Countdown >0
Timer After scene.DecTime
Spawn Actor relative to scene
Positions set to random

Hope that's the sort of thing you're after...

sandman

@gyroscope
@Braydon_SFX

Hey guys,

Thank you for the feedback.
I'll try your suggestions and see if it works.

I don't know if I was clear enough though.

I want to create one actor that will spawn: for example (bananas, apples) at random times.
- I created a timer. Inside the timer I did the following:
--- spawn: random(2,10) -- actor: bananas
--- spawn: random(2,10) -- actor: apples

Up untill here it works fine, or at least its doing what I need it to do ;-)

What I need to do is after say one minute the random rate is(2,7), after two minutes (2,5)
so more actors are created in a given time, but still random.

-Regarding The overlapping:
I'm afraid the actor will create the two actors(apples,bananas) at the same time since its random and I want to prevent it from doing so..