Godot: having problems with the raycasting - godot

Question

I am making a sort of map where points are randomly generated. Each point will then detect all the points nearest to it and draw a line there. I have tried making an Area2D around the points which would detect the other points and draw the lines.
This has worked, but only one line is being drawn to one point, even when there are other points intersecting the area. I did not know how to fix this until I thought of the idea to use raycasting instead of an area2d. It would be able to detect all of the points and just generally be more efficient.
However, this is my first time using raycasting, as I am fairly new to coding and game making. I have set up the rays and some code, but it is still not working.
Code:
var point_a = self.get_global_position()
var point_b = 0
var draw_line = false
func _process(delta):
var ray_list = [$RayCast2D]
for rays in ray_list:
if rays.is_colliding() and rays.get_collider().get_parent() == "Location":
point_b = rays.get_collider().get_parent().get_global_position()
draw_line = true
update()
func _draw():
if draw_line:
draw_line(point_a, to_local(point_b), Color(1, 1, 1, 1), 2)
draw_line = false
Any help with this problem would be great.

Answer 1

What I can tell is that both
var point_a = self.get_global_position()
And
point_b = rays.get_collider().get_parent().get_global_position()
Are in global coordinates.
However, you only transform to local point_b:
draw_line(point_a, to_local(point_b), Color(1, 1, 1, 1), 2)
Transform both:
draw_line(to_local(point_a), to_local(point_b), Color(1, 1, 1, 1), 2)
Although the position of the self in its own local coordinantes (i.e. relative to itself) is always the zero vector:
draw_line(Vector2.ZERO, to_local(point_b), Color(1, 1, 1, 1), 2)
Besides that… Read this:
point_b = rays.get_collider().get_parent().get_global_position()
It is the global position of the parent of the collider. Is that what you want?
If you want the position of the collider, it would be:
point_b = rays.get_collider().get_global_position()
And if you want the position where the ray hit, it would be:
point_b = rays.get_collision_point()
And yes, that is global coordinates too.
Addendum: The result of get_parent here:
if rays.is_colliding() and rays.get_collider().get_parent() == "Location":
Should be a Node, right? And a Node is not a String. So it will never be equal to "Location".
Presumably you meant to check the name:
rays.get_collider().get_parent().name == "Location"
An alternative approach would be checking groups. For example:
rays.get_collider().get_parent().is_in_group("Location")
And if you use groups for the Nodes directly, then you don't have to consider their parent:
rays.get_collider().is_in_group("Location")
Yoo can set the groups from the editor in the Node panel (it is next to the inspector by default) on the Groups tab.