moving_start(), moving_end() and physical objects

Recently I tried using the moving_start() and moving_end events in a physical object:

default {
    moving_start() {
        llOwnerSay("moving...");
    }

    moving_end() {
        llOwnerSay("stopped moving.");
    }

    state_entry() {
        llOwnerSay("Ready.");
    }
}

Nothing super complex, obviously. What I noticed was physical objects seem to trigger these events in an inconsistent manner. I'd have a physical box with this script in it just sitting on another prim (or on the ground) and I'd see it spit out "moving..." messages.

Am I missing something here? I wanted to use these events for the obvious reason -- to determine if a physical object started and stopped moving. I can do something similar with a timer and calls to llGetVel(), but that seems a lot clunkier.

The physics system seems to have a problem with collisions that occur constantly. You might want to try something with the collision event, or a slow timer that uses llGetVel. It all depends on what you want to do.

Yes, I've played with both the collision events and llGetVel. So far, llGetVel with a timer twice a second seems to work the best. I was just hoping to use the most efficient method for measuring motion (or lack of), and the motion events seemed the logical place to start.

Here's what I finally came up with:

state moving {
    state_entry() {
        llSetTimerEvent(0.5);
        moveit(); // impulses etc. get applied in this function
    }

    timer() {
        float current_speed;

        current_speed = llVecMag(llGetVel());
        if(current_speed < 0.00001) {
            llSetTimerEvent(0);
            llOwnerSay("Stopped.");
            state default;
        }
    }
}

Sadly, all of my experience with trying to use moving_start and moving_end has proven it to be far too erratic and unreliable to get anything done.

...agreed. I remember that I ended up using a timer to poll llGetVel() until it reported ZERO_VECTOR to detect the stop of a thrown physical ball...

/esc