What you would have to do is, with the /cars command, allow the cars that are allowed in the race, PLUS the safety car. Then send an IS_PLC with the allowed cars, excluding the safety car, to each of the racers. Once is enough, when they join the host.
I doubt it would affect races with safety cars, normally you just do /cars=GTR+FZ5+RB4 and obviously racers use the GTRs and admins the other ones when needed. And anyway, you'd need to develop/update insim applications to make use of it.
Will be useful if you do some stuff on a public server with all cars enabled, someone joins in a bad choice of car and you can spec them easier.
But to the players with just a subset allowed, only the ones they're actually allowed to drive would show up coloured in the car selection screen, right?
This concerned char "1" width, thanks! Indeed, the other things (colors) are of low priority. I also accept that you do not have a good feeling about sending hidden info to clients, so I'll do what I can using the existing packets (well, sending visible info for now). The new packet of allowed cars per connection looks indeed promising. I guess it will be very handy for all the multiclass and cruising servers... Too bad it means more work for me and others. Hehe, well, thats when we require something and then we get it. Thanks again.
Yes, that's right. It affects the car selection screen, the /car command and the check when you try to join a race.
I've seen racing hosts with a progression system and cruise servers where the host does know what you are allowed to drive (a subset of the actual cars that are allowed on the host). But the way it has always been enforced is by spectating you immediately after you join with a car you are not allowed. Now with this new InSim command it can work cleanly, appearing just like the "real" allowed cars system.
Actually if you are in a server and you do a take over with a driver driving a car you are not allowed to drive, the InSim won't spec you (probably because they don't want to).
With the new system will LFS spec you if you take a car you are prohibited to use?
Jeah thats really annoying in cargame.nl Server when you have no clue which car to drive and get specced always. Very nice addition although i don't see the reason why aa league which is organized enough to have a safety car would need to restrict the cars
Ah yes, you are right, it does not have to be necessary when using a safety car in leagues as long as it's administrated, therefore anyone who would take the safety car would be penalised (why would he even do that anyway), now I see it is more likely to be used in public multiclass racing, that's actually a good idea. I have seen many newcomers in those servers who took a car they are not allowed to drive and despite they saw the message, they disconnected. Now with the new packet system, it can attract (and keep) more players.
No, it has no effect in that case. You can still take over a car that the IS_PLC has prevented you from selecting.
Thanks, but I was hoping to be able to specify it for an individual block of code so that everyone sees it correctly regardless of their general setting. Doesn't really matter anyway.
Can the allowed cars packet also be used to disable all cars for a certain UCID? I would hope so, because it would be a useful functionality for special events etc... The question is what will then LFS do, if no car is available...
I've changed this behavior two months ago. (Visit more frequently, *grin* )
I especially make use now of the ability to change allowed cars with the /cars command. Anyone who is in the current track rotate and driving GTR can still drive it and/or continue with an ongoing race. /cars changes dynamically with the amount of server connections. If you want to join the race while the lock is on you just cannot select GTR in the LFS car selection screen. There is no error message anymore or auto-spectating.
So I'm not so happy with this change. I'm afraid..
Let me understand this correctly;
What happens if a server on default allows ALL cars but this InSim packet limits for a certain UCID the selection to lets say XFG+XRG.
Does the user get the selection screen with only XFG+XRG or is there some kind of error message when this UCID select a car he/she is not allowed to drive due to InSim regulations?
Uhm okay, maybe it was more than 2 month ago when i was so confused with safety ratings etc.
But the statement still holds. If i can select a car I should be able to drive it and not be specced after join which is the current limitation by insim systems to enforce car usage.
Well you can still be specced if you use the wrong setup, rally tires on road or vice versa. Or too many passengers on a race server, or using the wrong restriction.
UFB for example, newbies may drive UFR but only with 45% air intake restriction. Unrestricted GTR on our main server isn't even allowed at all. So this change doesn't cover all spec messages. But this sounds good. System gets more complicated from an admin point of view but will get over it
I would like to be able to bind InSim buttons to keys on the keyboard. For example, should I show a menu on the screen, and allow the player to use a button on their keyboard to activate (click) that button.
Something along the lines of this, but as you would suspect with LFS Track names, or player names as needed.
The reason why I bring this up, is that right now, for people who use a mouse to steer have to use their mouse to also select these items. I would like to be able to race with my mouse and still interact with the InSim app without having to use my mouse. You can still click on these items if you wish, but having the option to use you keyboard I think makes it a more robust solution.
I LOVE YOU! I have always wanted this feature, as stated, it could be used for racing as well as cruising, I am really looking forward to this, take as much time as you need.
You can, with a Cars value of zero. You can give a player access to all allowed cars with Cars = 0xffffffff and stop them selecting any car with Cars = 0.
If Cars is zero, or any set bits in Cars are not actually allowed on the host, then a player who tries to join is presented with a car selection screen full of greyed out cars. Whichever one they click, LFS informs them that the host does not allow them to drive that car.
That might be a bit crude but it's just what LFS did naturally. It's ok for now, doesn't need any translation strings, etc...
I'm not sure if I understood this correctly but please be warned - you will have to be very careful with the /cars command now, it can no longer be used as a "prevent join" command. Because any cars that are disallowed by the /cars command will be instantly spectated. I realised that /cars could be used in that way before but is now very "strong" and that's why I've done the IS_PLC.
I would like to just forget about this for now, the thought of it is a little confusing, and I don't want to occupy any more of my brain with anything tricky at the moment. This patch has taken longer than expected and I just want to get those last few things done and tested so we can release the official patch.
Soon :
In the next 1-3 days I'll be posting here to discuss some autocross object add / remove (instructions + notifications) and object hit by car notification packets.
Thanks for the reply. Sorry my example was confusing, I'll try to provide a more concise example using the LFS client with a plugin I'm making for PRISM as an example.
Actually your example is not confusing. It looks good... it's the thought of how to implement InSim key binds that is confusing, when the keys are all used up and multiple InSim programs can be attached, when my head is filled with so many other things.
Indeed, the other things (colors) are of low priority. I also accept that you do not have a good feeling about sending hidden info to clients, so I'll do what I can using the existing packets (well, sending visible info for now). The new packet of allowed cars per connection looks indeed promising. I guess it will be very handy for all the multiclass and cruising servers... Too bad it means more work for me and others. Hehe, well, thats when we require something and then we get it. 
Thanks again.
