I posted this already in the physics forum but nobody gave any good suggestions so I'm posting again here.

Is there any way to c_scan from a position in the world (i.e. the point of the explosion), then in the entitys' EVENT_SCAN event calculate the distance and direction from the explosion point to my.x, then calculate the correct force that needs to be applied according to the distance then use phent_addcentralforce(); or some other one of those functions to apply it in the right direction. I know there would be lots of trig and vector math involved, and I would figure it out myself, but I'm just starting highschool so obviously haven't learned that yet.

something like this

VECTOR* tmp = vec_position;
vec_sub (tmp, vec_explosion);
vec_length (tmp) //gives now the distance from position to explosion, use this as the force as you want

Thanks Hazardos. That's simple enough stuff, but that only give the distance. All the physics functions that add force to an object also need a direction vector in world coordinates, which is what's got me stumped.