I have a series of objects moving along the straight lines. I want to implement slight changes of velocity of each of the object. Constraint is existing model of animation. I am new to this, and not sure if it is the best way to accommodate varying speeds, but what do I know?

It is a Java application that repaints the panel every time the timer expires. Timer is set via swing.Timer object that is set by timer delay constant. Every time the game is stepped objects’ coordinates advanced by an increment constant. Most of the objects are of the same class.

Is there fairly easy way to refactor existing system to allow changing velocity for an individual object? Is there some obvious common solution I am not aware about?

Idea I am having right now is to set timer delay fairly small, and only move objects every so many cycles of animation so that the apparent speed can be adjusted by varying how often they get moved. But that seems fairly involved, and I do not think it is the most elegant solution in terms of performance what with repainting the whole frame every 3-5 milliseconds.

Can it be done by advancing the objects so many (varying) times during the certain interval (let’s say 35ms for something like 28fps), and use repaint() method to redraw just individual object? Do I need to mess with pausing animation for smoothness at higher redraw rates? Is it common practise to check for collision at larger step interval, but draw animation a lot more frequently?