Machinations

Delays, queues & intervals

In this section, we will explain how to use delays, queues & intervals for the events that should take longer than a minute to perform.

Some events in our game, such as building a house, should take longer than a minute (i.e. a step) to perform.

Events can be delayed in several ways:

Delays

The Building in Progress delay, shown as an hourglass, holds each house while it is builtThe Building in Progress delay, shown as an hourglass, holds each house while it is built
Tip

The Delay (Q) is a Pool-like component that holds resources for a given number of steps before releasing them.

The number on the output of a Delay defines how many Steps the resources inside will wait before exiting.

Build House starts a house in Building in Progress, which completes into the Houses Built pool five steps laterBuild House starts a house in Building in Progress, which completes into the Houses Built pool five steps later

Above, we’ve added a Delay called “Building in Progress” between the Build House Converter and the Houses Built Pool. When the wood and stone is committed, the house enters the Delay node and stays there for 5 steps (i.e. 5 minutes). Then, it is officially ‘built’, and enters the Houses Built Pool.

Delay Action types

The toolbar with the Delay and Queue button outlined in red.

The Delay button in the toolbar has an arrow beside it with two choices, Delay and Queue. A Delay placed from the first choice is in delay mode; choose Queue for queue mode.

Tip

In delay mode, resources can leave at the same time.

In queue mode, resources leave in single-file. The first one to enter must leave before the next one in the queue begins its countdown.

If in our game the player is able to build multiple houses at the same time, but only one can be actively constructed (like Clash of Clans’ unit-training), we would use Queue mode.

Note

Read our article on Delays & Queues to learn more.

Intervals

When editing a Resource Connection, you can also change its Interval.

A Resource Connection selected: the panel shows its Behavior summary, the amount, the Interval field set to 1 and the Flow or Instant transferA Resource Connection selected: the panel shows its Behavior summary, the amount, the Interval field set to 1 and the Flow or Instant transfer
Tip

Intervals block the flow of resources for the given number of steps. They have similar applications to Queues.

If we wanted to make it so that the player only loots every two minutes instead of one, we could set the Interval of the connection leaving the Player Loots Source to 2.