TimerHandler in andengine spawing sprites at a interval

Question

I am using this TimerHandler in andEngine to spawn sprites at certain times..

  mScene.registerUpdateHandler(new TimerHandler(0.02f, true, new ITimerCallback() {
                   @Override
                   public void onTimePassed(TimerHandler pTimerHandler) {
                          addSpriteTime1 += 2; // because timer update = 0.02 seconds
                           if (addSpriteTime1 == nextSprite1Time) {
                                  addFace();
                                   addSpriteTime1 = 0;
                           }

                           addSpriteTime2 += 2;
                           if (addSpriteTime2 == nextSprite2Time) {
                                 addFace2();
                                   addSpriteTime2 = 0;
                           }

                           addSpriteTime3 += 2;
                           if (addSpriteTime3 == nextSprite3Time) {
                                   addFace3();
                                   addSpriteTime3 = 0;
                           }
                   }
           }));

Now i have int variables declared at class level..

private int nextSprite1Time = 100;// initial value, could be changed during game
private int nextSprite2Time = 100;
private int nextSprite3Time = 100;

I then have a method which allows me to change the speed or the nextSpriteTimes.

 private void speed(int f, int g, int h){

    this.nextSprite1Time = f;
    this.nextSprite2Time = g;
    this.nextSprite3Time = h;
    Log.e("Time Changed", String.valueOf(this.nextSprite1Time+ "," + this.nextSprite2Time + ","+ this.nextSprite3Time));

     }

The problem is when i try to change the speed for example..

 speed(30, 50, 70);

It just stops all together and now sprites are added,

Does anyone see where i am going wrong with this or can do it differently?

Answer 1

First of all - Your log message in speed method is not an error - why are you using Log.e method? That's for errors... Use Log.d (debug) or Log.i (information) instead.

Back to your problem. I didn't understand exactly what you meant, but I do see a problem: Lets say that nextSprite1Time = 100 and addSpriteTime1 = 70. Up untill here, everything is fine, right? In five more onTimePassed calls, a new sprite will be added.

But now you changed nextSprite1Time to 60. addSpriteTime1 is still 70, and since it is larger than 60 it will never add a new sprite!

Solution: Use >= instead of ==, and don't zero the counters but decrease the value of nextSpriteTime from them, for example, for sprite 1:

addSpriteTime1 += 2;
if(addSpriteTime1 >= nextSprite1Time) {
    addFace();
    addSpriteTime1 -= nextSprite1Time;
}