G-code commands gets multiplied by random number
I believe that everything after the "*" is a comment.  From the random variation, I speculate that the comments for Octoprint are a check code.  For other host programs, it is a sequence number.

@oscar linked to a previous answer in a comment which shows that it is a checksum.  I will need to check the next time I run Repetier Host, but that seemed to be a sequence number.  Please see Oscar's comment (and upvote it).