Collision damage with objects

Hey,

I'm trying to create a system where a projectile can hit an object, and that object records damage. I've tried two approaches, but they have problems and I was wondering if people had had better success with a different method.

Method 1:
On collision the projectile makes an announcement on a channel - giving its position, damage amount and blast radius.

Objects listen for damage announcements, calculate their distance from the source, and whether they're within the blast radius.

Problem:
It works OK on low-lag sims, if the projectile switches non-physical at the point of collision, but in laggy sims they have bounced some distance away before announcing and so are inaccurate.


Method 2:
The projectiles have names like proj_xx, where xx is the damage amount.

Objects detect collisions and use the name to determine how much damage to take.

Problem:
The projectiles have to remain alive long enough for llKey2Name(llDetectedKey(loopNum)) to run; which means a) they look ugly sitting around after collisions, and b) they can ricochet into other objects.


Any better options?

Cheers

I use a variant of (2) where the object on collision immediately turns invisible, phantom, and non-physical (and temp-on-rez if it wasn't already). This allows it to linger long enough for it to be read, without cluttering up the landscape.

If they use llDetectedPos() instead of llGetPos()?

Thanks for the suggestions.

After a bit of playing I've gone with a reverse of method 2, where colliding objects announce damage for the target (targetKey:damage amount). Its not ideal, but way I can also use the same system for melee attacks (with a sensor picking who's in range).

Keep in mind that any system using Object Names is going to be easy for anyone else to do whatever they want with.

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The Chat problem thing I eventually solved by the first things you do on collision_start:

Record Position ( DetectedPos(0) works best against Lag )
Set Phantom TRUE
Set Physical FALSE

Then send your message with the Position and Range included, letting the Meter for people/objects do a if( llVecDist(InPos, MyPos) <= InRange ) check.

Then Die, ofcourse.