Delayed Commands

Scheduling things to happen some time in the future is a common and useful tool in game development for everything from gameplay logic to VFX. To support common use-cases, Bevy now has a general mechanism for delaying commands to be executed after a specified duration.

fn delayed_spawn(mut commands: Commands) {
    commands.delayed().secs(1.0).spawn(DummyComponent);
}

fn delayed_spawn_then_insert(mut commands: Commands) {
    let mut delayed = commands.delayed();
    let entity = delayed.secs(0.5).spawn_empty().id();
    delayed.secs(1.5).entity(entity).insert(DummyComponent);
}

Our goal for this mechanism is to provide a "good-enough" system for simple use-cases. As a result, there are certain limitations - for example, delayed commands are currently always ticked by the default clock during PreUpdate (typically Time<Virtual>).

If you need something more sophisticated, you can always roll your own version of delayed commands using the new helpers added for this feature.