Timing Events

For timing events, it’s recommended to use the this.clock methods, from your Room instance.

Clock

The clock is provided as a useful mechanism to time events outside of a stateful simulation. An example use case could be: when a player collects an item you might clock.setTimeout(...) to create a new collectible. One advantage of this.clock is that you do not have to track room updates and deltas. You can instead time your events independently of the room state.

Clock Methods

Note: time parameters are in milliseconds

clock.setInterval(callback, time, ...args): Delayed

The setInterval() method repeatedly calls a function or executes a code snippet, with a fixed time delay between each call. It returns Delayed instance which identifies the interval, so you can manipulate it later.

clock.setTimeout(callback, time, ...args): Delayed

The setTimeout() method sets a timer which executes a function or specified piece of code once after the timer expires. It returns Delayed instance which identifies the interval, so you can manipulate it later.

Example

The example below shows a Room with setInterval(), setTimeout, and clearing a previously stored instance of type Delayed. The example also reads currentTime from the Room’s clock instance.

After 1 second ‘Time now ’ + this.clock.currentTime is console.log’d, and then after 10 seconds we clear the interval via this.delayedInterval.clear()

// Import Delayed
import { Room, Client, Delayed } from "colyseus";
 
export class MyRoom extends Room {
    // For this example
    public delayedInterval!: Delayed;
 
    // When room is initialized
    onCreate(options: any) {
        // start the clock ticking
        this.clock.start();
 
        // Set an interval and store a reference to it
        // so that we may clear it later
        this.delayedInterval = this.clock.setInterval(() => {
            console.log("Time now " + this.clock.currentTime);
        }, 1000);
 
        // After 10 seconds clear the timeout;
        // this will *stop and destroy* the timeout completely
        this.clock.setTimeout(() => {
            this.delayedInterval.clear();
        }, 10000);
    }
}

clock.clear()

Clear all intervals and timeouts registered with clock.setInterval() and clock.setTimeout().

clock.start()

Start counting time.

clock.stop()

Stop counting time.

clock.tick()

This method is called automatically at every timestep. All Delayed instances are checked during tick.

Clock Properties

clock.elapsedTime

Elapsed time in milliseconds since clock.start() method was called. Read only.

clock.currentTime

Current time in milliseconds. Read only.

clock.deltaTime

The difference in milliseconds between the last and current clock.tick() call. Read only.

Delayed

Delayed instances are created from clock.setInterval() or clock.setTimeout() methods.

Public methods

delayed.pause()

Pause the time of a particular Delayed instance. (elapsedTime is not going to increase until .resume() is called.)

delayed.resume()

Resumes the time of a particular Delayed instance. (elapsedTime is going to continue to increase normally)

delayed.clear()

Clears the timeout or interval.

delayed.reset()

Reset the elapsed time.

Public properties

delayed.elapsedTime: number

Elapsed time of the Delayed instance, in milliseconds since started.

delayed.active: boolean

Returns true if timer is still running.

delayed.paused: boolean

Returns true if timer has been paused via .pause().