Part.Touched or spatial queries

[NewNotHere (swagmaster25)]

What is the difference between using spatial queries and part Touched events?

[StrongBigeMan9]

Spatial Queries

• Can be called at any time via a script
• If BasePart.CanQuery is equal to false for a part, it will not be affected / included when any of the following spatial query operations are called:
  • GetPartBoundsInBox
  • GetPartBoundsInRadius
  • GetPartsInPart
  • Raycast – Thanks to @Lielmaster for reminding me about this!

Another place to learn more about the CanQuery property is in its announcement topic.

---

Touched event

• Is only fired when two parts interact through physics simulations.
  • This means that manually adjusting the CFrame of a part or Tweening a part won’t activate the Touched event upon coming into contact with another part.

(For this example, let’s assume we have two parts: Part A and Part B )

• If Part A is touched by Part B, BasePart.CanTouch has to be true for Part B or else the Touched event won’t be fired on Part A.

---

@Lielmaster

@StrongBigeMan9 Did you intentionally not include raycasts? Raycast is also a spatial query.

To be honest, I forgot that Raycasts were considered spatial queries. I mostly associated those with the OverlapParams from this announcement thread since that was the first time I’d really heard the term.

The original list I included of the spatial query operations was based on the CanQuery documentation page which didn’t include raycasting but I’ll be sure to add it to this post!

[Lielmaster]

Spatial queries basically checks for parts within a 3D space, while a Touched event is a connection that fires when a physics collision happens.
Spatial queries include Raycast, and OverlapParams. This means that spatial queries runs once you call them and immedietely returns values. Example is, checking if a player is inside a safe zone after a time period.
Touched event fires everytime a part collides with “this” part, meaning it can multiply times (unless disconnected). Examples for this is checking if a player enters a part. We won’t know when they will enter, but we can set up a function if they did enter.

@StrongBigeMan9 Did you intentionally not include raycasts? Raycast is also a spatial query.