Championship saves (Data\ChShip\POD<n>.<kind>)

POD saves a championship under way into one of sixteen slots. The game makes these files; the disc has none. Everything here is observed in POD 2.8's WINPOD.EXE unless marked; no file made by the original has been checked yet (unknown: whether a real save matches byte for byte; the layout below is read from the code that writes and reads it).

Reader and writer: crates/pod-formats/src/chship.rs (round-trip tests in the module). The menus that save and load them: docs/systems/front-end.md, "Championship saves (POD)".

Where and what

• Folder: folder 9 of open_data_file (0x4765f8): folder_path (0x475a10) gives Directory (0x58e1b0) plus Data\ChShip\ (0x4e5f64). As for the other save folders, no copy on the CD is looked for (docs/modding.md).
• Name (0x46b598): POD and the slot ("%s%d", the slot 0 to 15 as a signed 16-bit number), then an extension chosen from the mode bits (0x633320), tested in this order:

Mode bits	Extension	Championship
2, 0x800 and 0x1000	.RS	random (action 21, mode 0x180a)
2 and 0x80	.CS	custom (action 20, mode 0x8a)
2 and 0x1000	.VS	unknown
2 and 0x800	.TS	unknown
2	.NS	standard (action 19, mode 10)

Without bit 2 the name gets whatever the stack buffer held (not a championship; never called so).

• Written by 0x46b70c (slot in AX): CreateFileA for writing, then one WriteFile per block below, each checked for its full length; a short write closes the file and returns 0.
• Read by 0x46bc60 (slot in AX, keep in DL): nothing when the slot's menu text is empty; else 0x46b200 keeps the globals, each block is read and stored back where it came from, and any short read restores them (0x46b3cc) and returns 0. With DL = 0 (a probe) the state is restored after a good read too.
• Names only (0x46c2d8): for each of the 16 slots, the first 32 bytes are read into the current menu's item text (AL = 1) or field (AL = 0); a slot with no file gets an empty field.

Layout

All values little-endian; i32 unless said. Offsets for one player and eight racers with no driver entries; the racers' part grows with their lists.

Offset	Size	Content	Memory (POD)
0x0000	32	The slot's name: the menu item's field (+0x88) as typed, its zero, then whatever the field held	item +0x88
0x0020	8	POD Cshp (0x4e4e74, strncpy of 8: no zero). Not checked by the reader	—
0x0028	4	Tracks in the championship	0x633340
0x002c	4	The race being run, from 0	0x633344
0x0030	4	Human racers	0x633324
0x0034	4	Computer racers	0x633328
0x0038	4	Mode bits	0x633320
0x003c	4	Laps per race	0x633330
0x0040	4	Difficulty (1, 2, 4)	0x633334
0x0044	4	Damage (0, 1, 2)	0x63334c
0x0048	16 × 4	The tracks by circuit number; action 19 writes -1 past the last	0x634594
0x0088	0xd40	Player 1's garage set-ups: eight car slots of 0x1a8 (layout not traced)	0x4fe2e8
0x0dc8	8	Player 1's kept flag per car slot	0x4ffd68
0x0dd0	0xd40	Player 2's set-ups	0x4ff028
0x1b10	8	Player 2's kept flags	0x4ffd70
0x1b18	1	Racer 0's gearbox (4 automatic)	0x6339b8 (racer entry +0xc4)
0x1b19	1	Racer 1's gearbox	0x633a94
0x1b1a	per racer	The racers, below, as many as the low words of 0x633324 and 0x633328 added (signed 16 bits)
end − 2	2	Mirror mask: bit n set, race n is mirrored (0x4284a8 sets the race's flag 0x633350 from it)	0x4fdf16

The reader reads nothing after the mask.

A racer (0x18c bytes, then two lists)

Built on the stack by 0x46b70c from several tables, racer r:

Offset	Size	Content	Memory (POD)
+0x000	0x40	Name	0x6338f4 + r × 0xdc
+0x040	0x40	The racer entry's text at +0x80 (start-up, 0x4986a4, copies a string from 0x6341cc into it; use unknown)	0x633974 + r × 0xdc
+0x080	1	A byte 0x473534 subtracts from the racer count to put a race record's place back (inferred: the count less the last race's place)	0x58b6d0 + r
+0x081	3	Never set: stale stack bytes	—
+0x084	4	The racer's car (entry +0xc0)	0x6339b4 + r × 0xdc
+0x088	4	Never set: stale stack bytes	—
+0x08c	4	Entry +0xc8 (start-up sets the racer's number from 1; use unknown)	0x6339bc + r × 0xdc
+0x090	6 × 4	Computer driver's state after the last race (0x456408, 0x4564b0 copy word +0x3c of six objects the AI record at 0x5a8e34 + r × 0xb8 points to)	0x5a9828 + r × 0x7c
+0x0a8	6 × 4	The same, kept from the race before (0x4565a4 copies the table)	0x5a9448 + r × 0x7c
+0x0c0	4	Championship points	0x58b6b0 + 4r
+0x0c4	4	Race times added up	0x58b690 + 4r
+0x0c8	4	Entries in the second list	0x5a9824 + r × 0x7c
+0x0cc	4	Entries in the first list	0x5a9444 + r × 0x7c
+0x0d0	0xbc	The race record (crates/pod-race/src/record.rs)	0x4f8d84 + r × 0xbc
+0x18c	8 × count +0xcc	First list (none when the count is 0 or less)	0x5a93f4 + r × 0x7c
then	8 × count +0xc8	Second list	0x5a97d4 + r × 0x7c

The two 0x7c-byte tables per racer (0x5a93f4, 0x5a97d4) hold up to ten 8-byte entries, the count at +0x50 and the six words at +0x54; they are copied from the computer drivers' records after a race (observed in 0x456408, 0x4564b0; what the entries mean is unknown).

After a good read, 0x46bc60 also: rebuilds the order table (0x4f9360, by the place in the high nibble of each race record's byte +4); checks the mirror mask: a non-zero mask needs the difficulty's flag (0x6345d4, 0x6345d5, 0x6345d6 for 1, 2, 4), else the load fails and the mask is cleared; loads the best times of the current track (load_records, 0x4ad118, with the bit 1 << track number of the mask: by the track's number, where 0x4284a8 uses the race's, observed); then calls 0x421bb0 (unknown).

Size

0x1b1c + 0x18c × racers + 8 × (all list entries): 0x277c (10,108) bytes for one player and seven computers with empty lists.