Is it possible to detect the start/finish crossing of any driver (apart from the leader) via InSim? If not, I guess I understand the problem.
I just can't imagine there's no way. Can't you look for the number of laps driven by the observed driver and detect when it goes up by one. You could use this as trigger and there would be no need to queue something up.
The problem is not detecting the trigger, but the way it works out. You are more likely to get a report for the wrong number of laps remaining when you are not the leader, as the leader is usually the most consistent driver or amongst them.
If the radio triggers as the viewed player crosses the line that's another message at a time when I am already culling some messages at that point because the radio is so busy.
Also it has all the same problems as the current system, except in slightly different circumstances. It's no better to trigger on the player than the leader.
The only way to seriously improve the routine would be to do a heuristic calculation based upon both the leader and the viewed players position and try to give a more intelligent answer based on the two.
Well, if you can use the start/finish crossing of the player as trigger, you would have to take the number of laps he has driven so far, add the number of laps he is behind the leader (if any) and subtract this from the overall number of laps (race length). This would give you an acurate number of laps to drive at this moment in the race. Of course this information could later become inacurate by being lapped, by the leader pulling out of the race, whatever...
But that's just like IRL, isn't it? It doesn't really matter because anytime you cross start/finish you get the then acurate number of laps left again. What more could you ask for?
About the massing up of messages: I don't understand why there are especially many messages around start/finish but I guess you're right if you say so.
Just an idea: Maybe you could implement a delay for certain messages that don't have to be played immediately, like lap number, fuel (as long as it isn't urgent) or position change. Those messages could be placed in the queue but wouldn't have to be played as soon as possible but within - let's say - the next 30 secs (what's the shortest lap time in LFS?). Should there be no possibility to play them within that time frame - because of other more urgent messages - they could just be deleted from the queue. Would be no problem because you can live without those informations and you usually get an update during the next lap anyhow.
Maybe this could be another approach to the problem of having too many messages at one time sometimes?
how come LFS companion always acts like im the leader or some1 else because somtimes when i join and race starts and im last then it says: ur in 1st place keep up, and yeah it just acts like im som1 else and not me! HELP!!
Would it be possible to have a textbox for entering our LFSW name (login) somewhere in the config? There would be NO mixups then. I realise that this would not work in demo, but if it could be an option that only licensed users use - would be nice.
PS Not that I've had problems with this, just an improvement suggestion
The reason I did it this way was because of colour codes and typo's leading to silence. I felt that because it needs doing once it's easier to have this system then to give technical support to people who cannot spell their own name.
And trust me, when dealing with the masses it does happen. Years of doing technical support has taught me the hard way on that one.
But for LFSW login you don't have colour codes (or do you? ). I think this would be rather idiot-proof (if we forget about demo, which could use the current system) as most of the people will be able to type their login correctly once
I'm pretty sure most people can drive a lap without crashing once too Otherwise auto is fine, it doesn't mess up that often does it? I havn't played much LFS since I started writing this, only in the last few days i've done a bit of Blackwood in the Fox because of the impending OWRL race, so i'm actually getting to use this application myself now so after the STCC race is out of the way there's likely to be a big update to this.
But now we both know that sometimes it does mess up. Imagine you come just in time for the start of a league race because [add reason for almost being late here]. And you have to
Maybe it'd be better for the future to settle for a robust solution so that this doesn't happen in the first place? I know it's easy for me to be nitpicking, when it's not me who's coding the mod. But I think it's not THAT much work and would improve the fault-rate(TM) significantly
Cheers
I got so angry on sunday because that auto thing. I have to drove the whole race with some "custom" messages for other driver. I don't know if that is a bug or what, turned off for me anyway now.
You do know you can save your config now dont you? Once you've driven your lap, it's driven, permanently, no need to repeat. Just save the config and you'll never have to do it again .
If you do get unstuck with radio messages for the wrong driver you could try pressing tab to switch camera car then shift-tab back to yourself. This forces insim to send the packet which LFSC uses to work out what car you are in.
I will try to improve the auto-detection in the future, but the auto off method is pretty robust.
This is an important point in case not everybody noticed this feature!
It works fine for me and it definitely improved the accuracy of LFSC.
Furthermore I'm not sure whether the inaccuracies that appear sometimes are actually all to blame on LFSC. Did you ever pay close attention to the position given by LFS in the HUD? This is itself not always accurate. It's often off right after the start (just for a few secs, no big problem there) and probably always at the end of a race, when the leader(s) have already crossed the line while you're still in the final lap. Usually you improve your position drastically only to be pushed back where you belong shortly after the line. I guess this always happen when there are lapped drivers in the race (or when you're laps down yourself?).
Even sometimes during a race the number seems to be inaccurate, especially when lapped drivers come into the equation. Sometimes it just seems to take a while to sort out the correct position. If LFS gives exactly the same value via InSim, LFSC can't always be right.
Maybe it's just that with pit radio it's much harder not to miss those little glitches.
ok i dont wanna read through 11 pages of posts and i only have 10 mins of my lunch left... so...
i tried to install this lastnight. no "readme.txt", i think you should create one for the dumbasses like me who dont know how to install it.
a real walk-through, step by step would be nice.
anyway, i started LFSC, then started LFS typed "/insim=49999". 1st time i maximised LFS it went to a black screen.
So i started again, did the same stuff but maximised b4 i went on-track. it was ok then.
what do i do then? i couldn't hear anything.
LFS gives no position information at all, LFSC calculates this itself and believe it or not, is more accurate! It doesn't suffer from the pit exit or post race bugs that LFS has. However LFS also doesn't send the same information for player identity in every packet, sometimes it uses uniquePlayerID, sometimes it uses the playerNumber (a special number used to order the grid), I decided to ditch that system and use the playername instead - but that turned out to be a mistake. At some point in the distant future I will restructure this.
I'm not convinced the benefit outweighs the processor usage, if an endurance league wanted the feature i'm sure I could come up with something, but otherwise it would be quite a bit of work for little reward.
There's a U20? Great, a day before an STCC race... I'll look into it, I guess i'll be programming tomorrow.
When the link is established you should get an insim and an outguage message in the top left of your screen. Try editing your LFS shortcut to do the insim setup for you. If you need help doing this please ask (although somewhere in this thread it's already covered EDIT: On the opening post under installation, includes link to a picture).
I will write a manual, but the software is still in an alpha state and it just isn't worth writing one yet. When it is nearer to being finished yes, it will get a manual.
Just in case I reinstalled the whole mod but I just can't get it to work properly... and I noticed that it works in replays but after I press pause it stops working. And still stops working after changing car as I before already told you. No clue about what I do wrong?
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). I think this would be rather idiot-proof (if we forget about demo, which could use the current system) as most of the people will be able to type their login correctly once