First a few timer basics. There are two types of timers, the Countdown timer (0:50) and the clock timer (0:100). The game allows up to 100 different countdown timers and they only go off once unless they are reset. The clock timer goes off continuously based on a delay in seconds which can be set.

We used some countdown timers to create the train ride in the previous section of this guide. Let's take a look right now at the clock timer. This can be used to repeat an effect over and over in a dream. Conventional wisdom is that you do not want too many of these nor would you want something happening every second as it tends to lag the dream. Having said that, it is fine to use a timer which goes off every 5 seconds or more and be fairly sure it will not lag anything. Be careful with anything less than that, especially in a busy, crowded dream.

Let's use a timer to make some waves. First create a shoreline using floor tile 202. Then slip this DS into the dream:

(0:100) When 5 seconds have passed by, offset by 0
(5:3) swap floors 202 and 206

This brief bit of code will cause the shoreline to appear to ebb and flow with the waves. Using a timer to alternate between two floor tiles is a common effect in Furcadian dreams and creates a nice animation with no lag at all.

Understanding offsets

Offsets are a way to use one timer to control things in a staggered manner, such as disco floor lighting. Here's how it goes:

(0:100) When 10 seconds have passed, offset by 0

This would cause an effect to happen every 10 seconds, starting with 00, then 10, then 20, etc,

(0:100) When 10 seconds have passed, offset by 5,

This would cause an effect to happen every 10 seconds starting with 05, the 15, then 25, etc

So we could set up something to change every 10 seconds, and then use the same timer with an offset of 5 to have something else change at an overlapping 10 second interval. The effect would be some kind of change every 5 seconds if we used both of these.

0 offset event 1.........10.........20.........30.........40, etc
5 offset event  ....5...........15.........25.........35, etc

The easiest way to think of offsets is that the offset number delays the start of the timed effect by that number of seconds. Thus,

(0:100) When 10 seconds have passed, offset by 5,

means to wait 5 seconds and then do this effect every 10 seconds from then on.

Countdown Timers

Countdown timers are set up by a cause. When something happens,

(5:50) set countdown timer # to go off in # seconds.

You replace the # sign with some numbers, like so:

(5:50) set countdown timer 1 to go off in 7 seconds.

This effect triggers this cause:

(0:50) When countdown timer 1 goes off,

Here you would add the effect you want to have happen when the timer fires off. You can do almost anything. However this would not work:

(0:50) When countdown timer 1 goes off,
(5:15) move the triggering furre to (10,10), or to someplace nearby if it's occupied.

When a timer triggers an event there is no "triggering furre" so nothing would happen in this case.

Timers are a great tool for your dreams. Use them to fire off ambient sounds and make waves move to give some life to the atmosphere in your creations!
 

In the next section we will take a look at locks for your dream...