Projectile delay in shooting c# game

Question

I have a game where I want the player to be able to shoot a laser with a delay on it. The code works but I'm wondering if I am going the right way about doing this.

I was wondering what is the proper way to add the delay?

I tried to include the code relevant to the question.

private double laserDelay;
private TimeSpan laserShootInterval = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(6);
laserDelay = laserShootInterval.TotalSeconds;

if (currentKeyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space))
{
    if(laserDelay == laserShootInterval.TotalSeconds)
    { 
          Shoot();
          laserDelay = laserDelay - laserShootInterval.TotalSeconds;
    }

}

UpdateLasers(graphics);


if(laserDelay < laserShootInterval.TotalSeconds)
{
      laserDelay++;
}

Answer 1

Presuming you are not using delta time (fixed amount of ticks per second) I would do it like so:

int delay = 6 * ticksPerSecond; // ticks to delay for
int cooldown = 0;

public void loop()
{

    if (currentKeyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space))
    {
        if(cooldown <= 0)
        { 
              Shoot();
              cooldown = delay
        }

    }

    UpdateLasers(graphics);


    if(cooldown > 0){
          cooldown -= 1;
    }
}