Bullet spawn speed or generation speed phaser - phaser-framework

Question

Hi all I have a function that generates bullets every time the player touches the screen.
Is there a way that I can limit the amount of bullets generated? Basically if I press the screen very quickly lots of bullets get generated but I would like to limit it to at least i per second instead of 2 or 3 per second.
Below you can find my firing function and my bullet creation function:
createBullets: function(){
//Bullets
this.bullets = this.add.group();
this.bullets.enableBody = true;
this.bullets.physicsBodyType = Phaser.Physics.P2JS;
this.bullets.createMultiple(500, 'bullet', 0, false);
this.bullets.setAll('anchor.x', 0.5);
this.bullets.setAll('anchor.y', 0.5);
this.bullets.setAll('outOfBoundsKill', true);
this.bullets.setAll('checkWorldBounds', true);
},
fireBullet: function(){
this.bullet = this.bullets.getFirstExists(false);
if (this.bullet) {
this.bullet.reset(this.tanque.x, this.tanque.y - 20);
this.bullet.body.velocity.y = -500;
}
},
and my update function:
if(this.input.activePointer.isDown){
if (!this.mouseTouchDown) {
this.touchDown();
}
}else {
if (this.mouseTouchDown) {
this.touchUp();
}
}
Any help I would really appreciate.

Answer 1

One option is to store two values:
nextShotTime: next time a shot can be fired
shotDelay: delay between shots (can be set like Phaser.Timer.SECOND * 2)
I don't see where you're calling fireBullet() in your example code above, but either before you make the call, or within the function, you could then check to see if the nextShotTime is in the past. If it is, fire another bullet and then update the nextShotTime with the current time plus the shotDelay.
For example:
if (this.nextShotTime < this.time.now) {
this.nextShotTime = this.time.now + this.shotDelay;
// add your code that will fire a bullet.
}

Answer 2

I have had similar problems in games before. The solution I used is the same as the one posted above. I found it in this
Phaser tutorial.
The fire function used in the tutorial is:
fire: function() {
if (this.nextShotAt > this.time.now) {
return;
}
this.nextShotAt = this.time.now + this.shotDelay;
You can modify it to suit your purposes.
This is part of a fire function I used in a game I made:
fire: function() {
//Make sure the player can't shoot when dead and that they are able to shoot another bullet
if(!this.player.alive || this.time.now < this.nextFireTime) {
return;
}
this.nextFireTime = this.time.now + this.fireRate;
var bullet;
//If weaponlvl = 0, shoot a normal bullet
if(this.weaponlvl === 0) {
if(this.bullet1.countDead() === 0) {
return;
}
//Properties for the basic weapon
this.fireRate = 500;
bullet = this.bullet1.getFirstExists(false);
bullet.reset(this.player.x, this.player.y-22);
bullet.body.velocity.y = -300;
}
Hope this helps you in some way.