Has anyone done any R&D into sorting object algorithms in DCS scripting lua?

[TEMPEST.114]

Specifically, what's the fastest way to sort between AI objects and player objects to see the distance between them and if within a set distance, return that subset as a table? 

I have done it, it's not hard using world.searchObjects() but I'm wondering on a server with a large number of players and AI units if this built-in sorting algorithm would be too inefficient and if there is a better way, or if because of the limitation of using the DCS Scripting Engine API if there is no alternative.

 

[Grimes]

Me being weird I don't like using world.searchObjects for getting a list of objects in an area, especially if that area is larger than a few km radius. However that mostly stems from the very noticeable hitch that can occur when searching for world objects over a densely populated area if the search area is large enough. 

The other way would be to iterate a table of known units, see if they exist, and get the distance from a given point. Depending on your needs you can vary the speed. For example the bubble script on Grayflag has a curated list of units and weapons that it tracks. Objects get added and removed via event handler. It only runs getPosition on each object every few seconds, which means its not ultra precise, but it is precise enough. Each bubble, think of it like a trigger zone typically around sams, will check its distance against the known object list. Depending on that distance it'll reschedule the check to occur slower or faster because the point is to allow a sam to "exist" in the mission by only spawning it in when aircraft are near. Anyway if the bubble is spawning in a short range sam and the nearest unit is 100km away it doesn't exactly need to update at a faster rate just to know the nearest unit is now 99.4 km away.

 

But no I haven't benchmarked it. I suppose it is a question of the distances involved and what information you care about. world.searchObjects on units will return all units, you'd have to sort for coalition and category if that mattered. Whereas if you only want to know which of 10 helicopters are in a zone it'll probably be faster to check the distance with a for loop and adding them to an table of in zone units. 

[TEMPEST.114]

Thanks for your input.