^&#% you, collision event! Can somebody help me?!

Hi, I'm Troy Mclure. You may remember me from such rants as Why Won't This Stupid Collision Work, or What do You Have to Do to Get a Good Link Set Around Here.

Seriously, though. I am having serious problems making a project of mine. This project is probably the biggest scripting error I have ever seen. The project involves dynamic orbits. Basically, I want to take several objects and have them choose which orbit to rotate on. I am doing the orbits by creating a central object and creating a link with it before moving; then breaking the link.

The Problem:

I have to get the keys of the objects before I call any link functions. I have tried collision (provided that the objects must be touching before they should enter that orbit) but unless an object is phyical, that doesn't work (nothing tells me about this). I have tried a sensor, but I want to choose the objects based on position, not anything else; and the sensor isn't capable of determining object at a certain position. I am out of ideas.

The collision got me the closest. Upon discovery that I could handle multiple prims in a single collision event, I had it set up for success. However, the whole physical/non-physical thing bit me in the ^$% on that one.

Thanks much for reading. Thanks more if you can help.

assuming these orbiting objects don't need to be solid, have you tried volume detect with your collisions?

I'm not sure why you can't use a sensor, since it can grab all the same info that a collision can (name, key, position, rotation, owner, etc)

perhaps if you described the simplified system, as a series of event that should occur it might be easier to guess where the problem is. because to me it sounds something like an atoms electron shell, and if you're using a spherical model for that all you should need is distance, not position.

If you are linking these objects, obviously you own them all. Thus, I would recommend some kind of chat protocol. Have them announce their positions, or use llGetObjectDetails() upon receiving messages. Just remember to choose channels wisely, filter as best you can, and communicate as sparsely as you can get away with (especially if--as it sounds--you have a large number of these objects).