I need help with logic about Magnitude

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1

Hello-

I scripted this system for when a player clicks a panic button it sends a message to a UiList. On the message, I want it to display the Player’s nearest location (which is represented by parts around the map with the location name’s as their part name). I used a print statement with using Magnitude to cycle through all the parts to see which one is closest. This works, I just don’t understand how I could tell the script to choose which part is closest.

Could you guys help point me in the right direction, thanks!

Server Script:

panicEvent.OnServerEvent:Connect(function(Player, Sender, Location)
	for i, v in pairs(workspace.RadioLocators:GetChildren()) do
		print((v.Position - Player.Character.PrimaryPart.Position).Magnitude)
	end
	panicEvent:FireAllClients(Sender, Location)
	print(Player.Name.." has activated their panic button.")
end)
2

Hello there, its actually quite simple, you basically already did all of the work.

What you need is to define a variable that holds the value of the lowest distance so far, and compare it to the current loop’s distance. If its lower, overwrite it.

panicEvent.OnServerEvent:Connect(function(Player, Sender, Location)
	local closest = math.huge --no number is greater than math.huge
	for i, v in pairs(workspace.RadioLocators:GetChildren()) do
		local currentdistance = (v.Position - Player.Character.PrimaryPart.Position).Magnitude
		if currentdistance < closest then closest = currentdistance end
	end
	panicEvent:FireAllClients(Sender, Location)
	print(Player.Name.." has activated their panic button.")
	print("Closest distance is:",closest)
end)
3

I tested this and it doesn’t work… It false detected a part for being the closest- I believe this is because whichever part the script detects first is always going to return true because its < than math.huge. Whereas the script needs to cycle through all the parts before declaring which part is the closest.

4

It is cycling through all the parts, where is it returning true?

5

I just checked- according to print statements, yes. It is cycling through all the parts but keeps printing this one part. Here, I updated the script to what you did:

panicEvent.OnServerEvent:Connect(function(Player, Sender, Location)
	local maxLength = math.huge
	local targetPart
	for i, v in pairs(workspace.RadioLocators:GetChildren()) do
		print(v)
		local currentDistance = (v.Position - Player.Character.PrimaryPart.Position).Magnitude
		if currentDistance < maxLength then
			targetPart = v.Name 
		end
	end
	panicEvent:FireAllClients(Sender, targetPart)
	print(Player.Name.." has activated their panic button.")
	print("Closest Part: "..targetPart)
end)
6

you forgot to update the “maxlength” variable to the the value of the current closest part,

		if currentDistance < maxLength then
			targetPart = v.Name 
			maxLength = currentDistance
		end

Otherwise how would it remember which part was previously the closest one?

7

Ohhhh! Fixed- it works now. Sorry about that, thank you!!!

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