(DECORATE & Zscript) A projectile that puffs on a monster on impact

[Pandut]

AKA me losing my damn mind and most likely overlooking something extremely simple.

In a nutshell. I have a projectile that once it hits a bleeding/nonbleeding actor I would like it to attach a unique puff to that actor.

I've tried A_SpawnItemEx, A_FireBullets, A_CustomRailgun. The only one that works (but very inconsistently) is A_CustomRailgun. I'm looking for a sure-fire way for a puff to be attached to a monster every time.

---

ACTOR FlareProjectile
{
Radius 6
Height 6
Speed 35
Damage (1)
Renderstyle Add
Alpha 0.97
Scale 0.42
Projectile
DeathSound "FlareGun/Hit"
DamageType "Fire"

+BRIGHT

States
{
Spawn:
TNT1 A 0 NoDelay
TNT1 A 0 A_PlaySound("FlamerBomb/Loop", CHAN_WEAPON, 1.0, 1)
Flying:
FLAR III 1 BRIGHT
TNT1 A 0 A_SpawnItemEx("FlareBallTrail", 0,0,0)
Loop
Death:
TNT1 A 0
TNT1 A 0 A_StopSound(CHAN_WEAPON)
TNT1 A 0 A_Scream
TNT1 A 0
{
A_SpawnItemEx("FlareHitGlob", 0,0,0,0,0,0,0, SXF_NOCHECKPOSITION | SXF_TRANSFERPOINTERS);
A_SpawnItemEx("wpglob", 0,0,0,0,0,0,0, SXF_NOCHECKPOSITION | SXF_TRANSFERPOINTERS);
}
TNT1 A 0
Stop
}
}

This is the projectile script in DECORATE. For context this is a 'Flare' that once it hits a monster actor it sets them on fire. The puff controls the 'Fire'. The puffs are written in Zscript.

---

class FlareHitGlob : bulletpuff
{
default
{
+ROLLSPRITE;
+BRIGHT;
+ALWAYSPUFF;
-ALLOWPARTICLES;
Radius 2;
Height 2;
Speed 10;
scale 0.10;
+puffonactors;
+hittracer;
vspeed 0;
renderstyle "Add";
alpha 0.90;
Decal "none";
Damage 0;
}

States
{
Spawn:
TNT1 A 1 NoDelay;
TNT1 A 0 A_SpawnItemEx("FlareHitActor", 0,0,0,0,0,0,0, SXF_NOCHECKPOSITION | SXF_TRANSFERPOINTERS);
Stop;
crash:
TNT1 A 0;
TNT1 A -1;
stop;
melee:
goto spawn;
}
}

This is the Puff actor, written in Zscript. Both this and 'wpglob' are the same code, they just spawn different 'HitActors'. The HitActors are particle FX and a tick-based damage handlers.

A_SpawnItemEx does nothing in its current state. A_FireBullets had a weird issue of attaching the puff to the *player* depending on their angle from the target.

For AoE puff checks, A_CustomRailgun works perfectly fine but I'm looking for a consistent single-target application method. I hope I am just overthinking this and the solution is just .. right there. But I can't find it xD.