just observed that one of the CompCar structures in a MCI packet is set to zero completely. The MCI packet tells me, that there are 12 players in race. But that is wrong, there are only 11 players. Where does the 12th player come from? Is it a player connected and spectating?
And (much more important) how can I distinguish between a valid CompCar information and such a CompCar as attached in the screenshot?

Background info:
- Version S2U
- Replay: Multiplayer (that Demo replay from my TV Director thread)

Thx and regards

Having 0's is not uncommon because the packet always contains 8 cars, if there are only 7 or less cars to send LFS sends zeroed data for the unused structs. As for the extra player, it is probably the host?

Quote from Becky Rose :

Having 0's is not uncommon because the packet always contains 8 cars, if there are only 7 or less cars to send LFS sends zeroed data for the unused structs. As for the extra player, it is probably the host?

hello Becky,

thx for your answer.
No, it is not the host. In other replays I read the correct number. Also please look exactly at the screenshot, it is not just padded with zeros. It is the first of 2 MCI packets, and in this packet it is the 2nd CompCar struct of 8.

regards
Sören

no idea? nobody who could help?
maybe there is a driver sitting in the box (setup screen)? But I could not associate it in this case because UniqueID is also zero. So other question: is a value of zero a valid UniqueID?

regards
Sören

I believe the uniqueId is never zero, but I could be wrong. Maybe you could upload the replay and I could see what noobTV makes out of it.

Quote from Frankmd :

I believe the uniqueId is never zero, but I could be wrong. Maybe you could upload the replay and I could see what noobTV makes out of it.

that would be nice: http://home.arcor.de/soeren_scharf/lfs/TvTestDemo.zip

thx and regards
Sören

If the host drives uniqueid is zero. So the host is ever zero.
If you drive singleplayer your player is 0.

I have requested the NPL packets from the replay and additionally I did some research in single player modus.

Indeed if playing in single player the Uid of the players car is zero. Maybe this is also true for hosts in multiplayer, I have not tested it.
But in this case it was not the host, it was a player with Uid=37, who was in the players list but nowhere on the track.
I have tested in single player (and additinal 2 AI cars) and checked for contents of MCI packets. As soon as I entered the BOX (not the pit lane, I mean the setup screen), the contents of the CompCar struct was set to zero completely. It was the same behaviour as in the multiplayer replay. So I have to assume that one player (with uid=37) was in the setup screen when the race started.

It was just a bit confusing for me that I get a CompCar for a player, who is not on the track. But I have noticed it, and also the insim.txt tells that pitting players (PLP) are still in the players list (btw: I never got a PLP because the driver was already in the setup screen at start of the race).
The oddity with this is, that I get all values in the CompCar struct set to zero (also the uid) for a player with a uid of 37.

Nevertheless there is still one question: Would part of the CompCar struct can I use to detect if a driver is on track or in the pit screen? Using uid would not be possible because this can be zero for single player. But maybe checking the lapnumber for zero? As far as I know the lapnumber starts counting from 1.

Regards
Sören