right now i am trying to implement a bit of physics into my engine. i just got to thinking that i might need to change my object class. the way i have it set up is i have an array of all vertex values (no duplicates) and another array for triangle vertices. the triangle array references the vertex array to get values. keeping in mind that i am going to do per-vertex collision, should i keep my setup or should i modify it so i have a single array that combines vertex values and triangle values. i guess that would be a vertex array that opengl could use. what do yo think?

Using glDrawElements you can supply both your arrays and have it draw what you wish. Infact this is how I get a model from Blender into my opengl app, I grab all the vertices and then I grab the indexes for the faces.

Clutch