Pygame - Run event for 3 seconds only once

Question

I am fairly new to PyGame and I am creating a space shooter game. Part of this game are powerups and when a specific powerup is picked up by the player, I want the player not to be able to shoot for 3 seconds. Shooting is done by mouse click.

I can pick up the powerup, I know what powerup the player last picked up, but I am struggling with the event. How I am thinking of implementing is:

1. Can't Shoot power up is picked up -> that's done
2. Block mouse buttons
3. Wait 3 seconds, while the rest of the game is still running
4. Unblock mouse buttons.

I am aware that Python functions, such as wait, won't help.

Any ideas/suggestions? Thanks

Answer 1

When you call clock.tick() it returns time since the last call. So save that time: dt = clock.tick() and then use that variable to count down your seconds.

Example:

dt = clock.tick() # only call once per iteration
if attack_blocked:
    attack_block_count += dt
    if attack_block_count >= 3000: # dt is in ms
        attack_blocked = False

Example 2:

while True:
    dt = clock.tick(60)
    for event....
        if block_attack_power_up:
            attack_blocked = True
            attack_block_count = 0
    if not attack_blocked:
        # do your attack
    if attack_blocked:
        attack_block_count += dt
        if attack_block_count >= 3000:
            attack_blocked = False