Consider
var thing:PhysicsDirectBodyState = PhysicsServer.body_get_direct_state(caster.get_rid())
ATM I am calling this in _physics_process of a containing node to 'caster' (the container is a spatial that is never moved btw -- it's just the root of the packed scene representing the assembly i have made). The caster (as in something that rolls on a floor) should be continuously in contact with the map floor but collision reporting is punctuated. Collision count goes to zero.
Now the floor is a large flat surface (of a box) and the caster is a sphere. It occurs to me that I need to invoke the above in _physics_process of the caster object itself to get reliable contact information from it.
Correct?
