So I have a sprite that can perform a punch and a mid-air kick. I want an animation to trigger outside of the sprite when the punch and kick are performed to extend the attack area and add extra damage. I have the animation linked as the player's slave, but I can't figure out how to get it to activate everytime the punch/kick is executed.

I've tried using an invisible action for the gadget, and have that be default, then have the melee attacks turn on a switch. The animations would then get activated when the player faces right or left, and the switch is on. After the gadget plays all animations, the switch goes off and back to invisible. This doesn't work at all though, as the animation only activates in intervals.. Basically if you stand still for like 1.5 seconds and then use the punch/kick, it'll work properly. If you spam the punch/kick though, it will only show up on the first, or not at all. Same like if you jump or are running or something. My guess is that it takes switches a second or so to register and that's why it isn't immediate, so I'm hoping for other ideas as I've run through quite a few besides this one and none of them are giving me the results I would hope for.

I had thought about assigning them as projectiles that don't move. Any thoughts?

Make sure your animation returns to ground state at the end of the punch animation. Also if your triggers are set wrong its possible its reading it as punch from another punch thus it doesn't realize the first punch ended. In your rules it's possible you have an error somewhere where if pushing punch while in the punch animation that is skipping over your switch setting..

maybe try setting the switch to off at the beginning of each punch then to on that way each punch resets at the beginning
make sure to switch off at the end too
Also at the beginning of the default stand action.

that might help if you understand what I mean