timing-and-yielding.md

Timing and yielding

Yielding pauses only the current script. It does not freeze the server or other SER scripts.

Wait for a duration

Print "Starting"
wait 500ms
Print "Half a second passed"
wait 2s
Print "Two more seconds passed"

Known durations may use ms, s, m, or h. For a duration calculated at runtime, use ToDuration.

Wait for a condition

wait_until reevaluates a condition until it becomes true:

Print "Waiting for every SCP to leave play"
wait_until {AmountOf @scpPlayers} is 0
Print "No living SCPs remain"

Only use a condition that can eventually change. Event data and local references may become invalid while a script is paused, so validate them again after a long wait when necessary.

Yielding methods

Some integration methods yield until an asynchronous operation finishes. Their help describes that behavior. Do not assume that a method yields from its name; inspect it with:

serhelp MethodName

Every forever loop must reach a yielding instruction on every repeating path. A branch that repeatedly uses continue before the only wait can still monopolize the server thread.

Next: commands and events.