How do I stop a countdown

Hey guys! I am currently working on a game were you have food and water, you lost 10 every second, these are Global Variables. I also have a random event system- every 10-30 seconds, a random event will occur. unfortunatley, you still lose food and water while the event happens (Like getting involved in a battle), so once you finish battling someone, you have 200 food but when the battle started you had 600. Any help? Thanks!

So essentially, you want to stop the countdown during the "Event" and continue the countdown when the "Event" is over?

two ways.

one - use a global variable to determine if the player is in battle and check it in the subtraction event..

(add a "player is not in battle" condition)

second - use groups for the events pertaining to the battle and those not and activate/deactivate the groups based on what your game is currently doing..

so have a global variable saying: playerInEvent = 0

Encounter2

set playerInEvent = 1

then in my subtraction event, would I use it as a condition so like

Every 1.0 Second(s), playerInEvent = 0

subtract 10 food

subtract 10 water

Like that, right?

and one more question, how would i stop my random events from occurring? I figure i will try the same thing that worked with the food.