Empty Draft File?

[Franklinnoble]

I want to be able to import an empty draft file into FOF2k4... basically have nothing but fodder available for the rookie draft. Will this work, and is there one around that I can use?

Thanks...

[rkmsuf]

I want to be able to import an empty draft file into FOF2k4... basically have nothing but fodder available for the rookie draft. Will this work, and is there one around that I can use?

Thanks...

that's cooky talk.

I know, you are working on your cricket sim.

[Franklinnoble]

that's cooky talk.

I know, you are working on your cricket sim.
Nah, it's for a dynasty I'm working on. I want the league to have a "break" for a few years during WWII...

[JeeberD]

YOu could probably create one of those One Players Universe files, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. There's probably some info on that in the All Inclusive thread...

[rkmsuf]

Nah, it's for a dynasty I'm working on. I want the league to have a "break" for a few years during WWII...

Man you are a persistant little monkey. Make sure you freeze the head of a legend of the game in the year 2003.

[Franklinnoble]

YOu could probably create one of those One Players Universe files, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. There's probably some info on that in the All Inclusive thread...
Me, either... I was hoping for a quick, lazy answer to my question. :D

[cthomer5000]

it would definitely "blow up" the game if you tried to make it legitimately empty. That was actually a bug that used to occur in FOF2001.

However, you probably could make a draft pool full of complete stiffs if you wanted to, although I'm not quite sure how. One of those FOF historian league guys would know.

[Franklinnoble]

it would definitely "blow up" the game if you tried to make it legitimately empty. That was actually a bug that used to occur in FOF2001.

However, you probably could make a draft pool full of complete stiffs if you wanted to, although I'm not quite sure how. One of those FOF historian league guys would know.
Hmm... well, I don't want the game imploding or anything. I seriously doubt anyone has a draft file full of crappy players...

[Suicane75]

Hmm... well, I don't want the game imploding or anything. I seriously doubt anyone has a draft file full of crappy players...


Can't you make a file with only 1 player, make him a crappy one, and the game will generate a full draft class of crappy players, or am I remembering that wrong?

[Franklinnoble]

Brilliant... from the help file:


This generator requires a raw draft file in the form of a comma-separated text file. Most spreadsheets support exporting data in this form. Or, if a spreadsheet isn't available, you can create the file yourself.

When importing the data, the game can handle up to 1,000 draft-eligible players in a draft file. If you have less than the minimum number of players at any position, the game will create mediocre players to fill the void at the beginning of a career.

To use a draft file, import it into Front Office Football immediately before the free agency period. Make sure players average about 21-22 years old when entering the Front Office Football draft, or mass early retirements could follow.

Data in a comma-delimited text file (.csv) appears in the following form, with every value separated by a comma:

Johnson,Reginald,8,76,299,1982,45,375,375,

[Franklinnoble]

Uhh... on second thought, maybe not... I get an error when I try this with a draft file...

[Franklinnoble]

Meh... I just spat out a csv file with 800 entries. I now have 801 crappy offensive tackles in the upcoming draft named John Doe.

[Cap Ologist]

Give me about 30 minutes and I'll see what I can come up with.

[Franklinnoble]

Give me about 30 minutes and I'll see what I can come up with.
You da man...

When you're done, you'll have to tell me how you did it...

[Cap Ologist]

It is finished, I'm going to test it out real quick and make sure it does what it's supposed to.

[Franklinnoble]

It is finished, I'm going to test it out real quick and make sure it does what it's supposed to.
Sweet. I assume you have a .csv file that I can modify (I'd like to be able to tweak the year of birth and such...)

[Cap Ologist]

Ok, here it is. The zip contains the draft file, csv file and a short readme.

Hope it works out for you. I tried it on a test career and it produced a bunch of roster filler type players.

Let me know if there is any thing that needs to be tweaked.

You can download it here (http://www.geocities.com/fofdynasty/FOF2004DraftRosterFillers.zip).

[Franklinnoble]

That is simply awesome. Seriously, Jim needs to find a way to include some of your work in an FOF expansion pack or something.

Thanks a bunch...

[Cap Ologist]

I'm glad you enjoyed them. Last night, as I was falling asleep, I realized that I could go ahead and generate several different sets, so I've now uploaded a set of five drafts (http://www.geocities.com/fofdynasty/UpdatedRosterFillerDraftFiles.zip) for you to use. Hope these can help you out.

[Franklinnoble]

How are you generating these, exactly?

[Cap Ologist]

The random names I generated from a simulation program that I'm working on. Then I just made a couple of formulas to generate random values that fell in the appropriate ranges. Then I ran another program that randomly distributed some of the values to create a new file with the same names.

If you'll look in the first draft file, you'll find an interesting and very intelligent safety.

I can also make the files get progressively better if you would like.

[Alf]

You two !

[Franklinnoble]

The random names I generated from a simulation program that I'm working on. Then I just made a couple of formulas to generate random values that fell in the appropriate ranges. Then I ran another program that randomly distributed some of the values to create a new file with the same names.

If you'll look in the first draft file, you'll find an interesting and very intelligent safety.

I can also make the files get progressively better if you would like.
That's awesome... You ought to write a utility that spits these out.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, that safety went undrafted, signed with the Detroit Lions, started 16 games, and was cut in the off-season. I'm thinking I can afford to sign him to my 53 man roster, just for grins.

[JeeberD]

So is that safety named Franklin Brown, Franklin Noble, or Cap Ologist?

[Cap Ologist]

So is that safety named Franklin Brown, Franklin Noble, or Cap Ologist?


Nope, here is a hint (http://www.solecismic.com/sole/index.php)...

[JeeberD]

Aha!

[Franklinnoble]

Remember, Jeebs, he said it was a "very intelligent" safety...

[JeeberD]

That's why I was thinking it was Cap Ologist... ;)

[Cap Ologist]

That's why I was thinking it was Cap Ologist... ;)

:)

[Cap Ologist]

That's awesome... You ought to write a utility that spits these out.




Ok, I'll see if I can come up with something a little more userfriendly than what I've been doing.

I've used files like this for an OPU Career I started in 1922 to simulate the startup of the NFL, it's pretty stinking tough using your #1 draft pick on a guard who is 13/40 or something. Still, its kind of fun, and makes you more dependent upon cohesion, chemistry and gameplanning. I'm making my draft files get progressively better in that game to make it more realistic.

[sovereignstar]

I want to be able to import an empty draft file into FOF2k4... basically have nothing but fodder available for the rookie draft. Will this work, and is there one around that I can use?

Thanks...
noble, you cold-hearted bastard. My what the concrete jungle has done to your soul. Just let the draft have it's players.

[Franklinnoble]

Ok, I'll see if I can come up with something a little more userfriendly than what I've been doing.

I've used files like this for an OPU Career I started in 1922 to simulate the startup of the NFL, it's pretty stinking tough using your #1 draft pick on a guard who is 13/40 or something. Still, its kind of fun, and makes you more dependent upon cohesion, chemistry and gameplanning. I'm making my draft files get progressively better in that game to make it more realistic.
That's brilliant.

Seriously, I'd paypal you some money for a utility that generates draft files automatically, with the ability to pick the year (like you suggested above) and the average talent level of the players. Then I could edit the .csv files to throw in an occassional historical star, like, say Sammy Baugh or something.

[Franklinnoble]

noble, you cold-hearted bastard. My what the concrete jungle has done to your soul. Just let the draft have it's players.
The idea was to have a few drought years during WWII. I had a dynasty that I actually wanted to shut down completely during those years...

Oh, BTW... having a .csv file with 800 mediocre OT's named John Doe did NOT work well for me. I imported the draft, and everything went fine until about week two, when the game crashed hard. I must assume it was the clone army of Doe's that caused it, because I re-ran the season using C.O.'s draft file instead, and everything was ducky.

[Cap Ologist]

Ok, I think I've found a simple way to do this. I had class all day today, then I had to go to a dinner with my wife at the school she works, so I haven't been around. Hopefully, I'll have something serviceable by tomorrow, and because I enjoyed your Chargers dynasty so much, don't worry about the paypal!

[Cap Ologist]

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, that safety went undrafted, signed with the Detroit Lions, started 16 games, and was cut in the off-season. I'm thinking I can afford to sign him to my 53 man roster, just for grins.


How's he doing?

[Franklinnoble]

Ok, I think I've found a simple way to do this. I had class all day today, then I had to go to a dinner with my wife at the school she works, so I haven't been around. Hopefully, I'll have something serviceable by tomorrow, and because I enjoyed your Chargers dynasty so much, don't worry about the paypal!
You da man!

[Franklinnoble]

How's he doing?
I've only simmed two seasons since that draft... I'm trying to get the literary portion of the "Escape to Yesterday" dynasty caught up before I sim any further.

He didn't do anything in his second season... he spent the year on my roster on the inactive list. It doesn't look like he has any breakout potential at all, but he's already my secondary leader, and I'm thinking of giving him some more minutes.

[Cap Ologist]

Ok, here it is. if you have any questions let me know.

Custom Roster Generator (http://www.geocities.com/fofdynasty/CustomRosterGenerator.zip)

[Franklinnoble]

Just took a quick look at the readme for this...

This is frickin' brilliant... I don't know what your "real" job is, but I hope you get paid to use your powers for good, and not evil. :D

[Cap Ologist]

I just realized that in the Instructions, I didn't mention what the start year did. I'm sure you were able to figure out that is how you change the dates, but just wanted to make sure.

Hope you are enjoying it.

[Franklinnoble]

I just realized that in the Instructions, I didn't mention what the start year did. I'm sure you were able to figure out that is how you change the dates, but just wanted to make sure.

Hope you are enjoying it.
I'm definately going to play around with it a bit... I may start using it exclusively for dynasty play, just so I have the ability to throw in a few historical players every now and then.

[Cap Ologist]

I'm definately going to play around with it a bit... I may start using it exclusively for dynasty play, just so I have the ability to throw in a few historical players every now and then.

Ok, I may need to do a little tinkering with it to become more useful. Right now, it is definitely useful for making poor drafts. As far as making "normal" draft files with a more realistic distribution of players, I'm not sure how it will work. I'll do some study over it this weekend and see how well it works at producing a "normal" draft file.

By normal, I mean having a distribution among the 10 levels with the correct proportion of players in each level.

[Franklinnoble]

Ok, I may need to do a little tinkering with it to become more useful. Right now, it is definitely useful for making poor drafts. As far as making "normal" draft files with a more realistic distribution of players, I'm not sure how it will work. I'll do some study over it this weekend and see how well it works at producing a "normal" draft file.

By normal, I mean having a distribution among the 10 levels with the correct proportion of players in each level.
Excellent. I sort of figured I'd have to just mash a bunch of good and bad draft files together to get a balanced effect, but that would be even better.

Oh, and I have the JVM, if you want to "beta test" something aside from an Excel worksheet. :D

[Cap Ologist]

Excellent. I sort of figured I'd have to just mash a bunch of good and bad draft files together to get a balanced effect, but that would be even better.

Oh, and I have the JVM, if you want to "beta test" something aside from an Excel worksheet. :D


Great, you can be my beta tester!

[Cap Ologist]

I almost done. The biggest thing I have left to do is setting up the csv export function. I'm not too familiar with how to do that, so I'm not sure how long it will take me. I should hopefully have something by Monday at the latest.

[hukarez]

This seems interesting.

I checked out the stickied thread to see if there were any "draft generators" of some sort (aside from in game), and didn't seem to find any. I probably missed a whole bunch of threads in days' past, but this sounds to me like a first third party draft generator, no?

[Cap Ologist]

This seems interesting.

I checked out the stickied thread to see if there were any "draft generators" of some sort (aside from in game), and didn't seem to find any. I probably missed a whole bunch of threads in days' past, but this sounds to me like a first third party draft generator, no?


I think so, I'm hopeful to get it finished this weekend.

[Suicane75]

More people need to see this thread. It may be little but this is a real cool thing for people who may be a little tired of single player and need something to boost their enthusiasm, I usualy start my careers in 1900 and this is the perfect program to add a little extra umph to my careers. Great work CO.

[Cap Ologist]

Ok, I finished the generation part of the program today. I'm working on adding the csv export part now. If I have time, I'm going to add a feature that will generate college stats for the players as well.

Hope you are all having a great weekend.

(By the way, I like to start careers in 1922 to simulate the official beginning of the NFL and then move up until I can use the historical draft files. It makes the game alot more challenging to me.)

[Suicane75]

Ok, I finished the generation part of the program today. I'm working on adding the csv export part now. If I have time, I'm going to add a feature that will generate college stats for the players as well.

I just made a mess on myself.
:eek:


To tell you the level of awesomness that would add would be hard to do with only words.

[Cap Ologist]

I just made a mess on myself.
:eek:


To tell you the level of awesomness that would add would be hard to do with only words.


Sorry about the mess, from now on I shall give proper warning so you can have kleenex handy.

[Cap Ologist]

Just wanted to give an update on how this is going, which is quite well. I think those of you who are interested in this will be pleased. I've actually written two programs for this. The first one was in Java, but not very user-friendly. It was a command-line program, which worked pretty well.

I decided to put in a little extra time and rewrite the program in Visual Basic 6.0. This is my first attempt at using Visual Basic, but so far everything has been very straightforward and somewhat similar to Java.

I'm also working on a model of sorts that will generate fairly realistic statistics based on the ratings of the player. This should hopefully add an extra dimension of realism and give a few more indicators of player levels. I'm hoping to finish the model tomorrow, and then all I'll have left to do is setup the export to csv. I went to Barnes & Noble this evening and looked in some of the books and I think I've figured it out. If I can get that part written pretty quickly tomorrow, I'll probably run some test careers first and see how it works. I'm pretty confident that I'll have the finished product tomorrow night.

Here is a sample stat line from a quarterback who would most likely be a top 1st rd draft pick:

459 Attempts
308 Completions
3699 Yards
32 TD's
10 Ints

compared to:

Philip Rivers 2003 College Stats
483 Attempts
348 Completions
4491 Yards
34 TD's
7 Ints

Ben Roethlisberger
496 A
342 C
4486 Y
37 T
10 I

Eli Manning
441 A
275 C
3600 Y
29 T
10 I


All right, I'm going to try to get a little more done tonight.

[Alf]

Truely amazing work !

[Suicane75]

Truely amazing work !


Indeed.

[Franklinnoble]

This is bad-ass...

[Cap Ologist]

Things are coming along pretty good. I finished the statistical generation model today, and it seems to be doing a pretty good job of randomly generating stats based on player ratings. I'm not sure how well it will still work once it is imported in FOF. There could be somethings in that process (and probably are) that might mean tweaking this a little.

As of right now, I'm just trying to make sure it is bug-free. I'm going to be in class all day tomorrow, so I would like to make sure it will perform for the sake of you guys. Hopefully, if I figure out two gray areas, I'll be able to upload it tonight.

All in all, it hasn't been too bad considering I knew nothing about Visual Basic until a couple of days ago. I'm going to go try to finish up, just wanted to let you guys know where it stands. Thanks for your patience.

[Franklinnoble]

Things are coming along pretty good. I finished the statistical generation model today, and it seems to be doing a pretty good job of randomly generating stats based on player ratings. I'm not sure how well it will still work once it is imported in FOF. There could be somethings in that process (and probably are) that might mean tweaking this a little.

As of right now, I'm just trying to make sure it is bug-free. I'm going to be in class all day tomorrow, so I would like to make sure it will perform for the sake of you guys. Hopefully, if I figure out two gray areas, I'll be able to upload it tonight.

All in all, it hasn't been too bad considering I knew nothing about Visual Basic until a couple of days ago. I'm going to go try to finish up, just wanted to let you guys know where it stands. Thanks for your patience.
Is Visual Basic that easy to learn?

I know nothing about programming... I'm just wondering if it's worth trying to learn Visual C++, or just take the easy way and pick up Visual Basic...

[Cap Ologist]

It's not that it is easy, it's just similar in many ways to Java which I'd been learning for the last couple of months. There are lots of differences though, but they haven't affected me in writing a program to do this.

From my limited experience with Visual Basic, I'd recommend it. It won't be easy, but it certainly isn't overwhelmingly difficult to this point.

About the program, my internet connection decided to take a vacation or something last night, I'm hoping that everything will be up and running this evening when I get home. I'm at school right now in the computer lab, and won't be back home for awhile.

Hope you are all having a great day!

[Franklinnoble]

Still waiting with baited breath...

:D

[Cap Ologist]

Sorry that I haven't posted anything lately. It's been a real crazy week. One of my friends dad was struck by lightning and kill earlier this week, so everything this week has been scrambled.

As for the program, there are a couple of problems importing the draft files. I think this has to do with something inside the actual program FOF 2k4. In the csv file, qb A has 25 td passes and 14 ints, but when you import it the ints go to zero, and his pass attempts drop down to completions.

Also, it seems that importing a file leads to fewer "great players". Most of the top players have low current and high potential. So, I need to email solecismic and find out somethings.

Other than that, just looking at the CSV files, everything looks good. The stat generation is working really well. It does a good job of aligning with overall ratings while still having some randomness to make you study other attributes.

Finally, I'm going to be without internet access for the next couple of days. I've had all sorts of problems with my dsl provider and have switched over and it's going to take a couple of days. My apartment complex has a lab that I might be able to use if I can find out what's happening with the imported stats. That part of the program took the longest to write and test to make sure it was realistic, and I really hate to just throw it away.

So, I'm not sure when I'll post next, and I hate that this has taken so long, but in the end it will hopefully be worth it.

[Franklinnoble]

Sorry that I haven't posted anything lately. It's been a real crazy week. One of my friends dad was struck by lightning and kill earlier this week, so everything this week has been scrambled.

As for the program, there are a couple of problems importing the draft files. I think this has to do with something inside the actual program FOF 2k4. In the csv file, qb A has 25 td passes and 14 ints, but when you import it the ints go to zero, and his pass attempts drop down to completions.

Also, it seems that importing a file leads to fewer "great players". Most of the top players have low current and high potential. So, I need to email solecismic and find out somethings.

Other than that, just looking at the CSV files, everything looks good. The stat generation is working really well. It does a good job of aligning with overall ratings while still having some randomness to make you study other attributes.

Finally, I'm going to be without internet access for the next couple of days. I've had all sorts of problems with my dsl provider and have switched over and it's going to take a couple of days. My apartment complex has a lab that I might be able to use if I can find out what's happening with the imported stats. That part of the program took the longest to write and test to make sure it was realistic, and I really hate to just throw it away.

So, I'm not sure when I'll post next, and I hate that this has taken so long, but in the end it will hopefully be worth it.
Sorry to hear about all the troubles you've had. I'm sure the finished product will be well worth the wait. :D

Thanks for the update...

[Suicane75]

I second what FN says, take your time, we'll all still be here when it's ready.

[Vince]

Amazing...sorry that I've missed this until now. This could be incredible...

[Franklinnoble]

*Bump*... just wondering if there's any update...

[Cap Ologist]

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I emailed support about some issues. The biggest issue was that by converting the file from a csv to faf file, the last column of statistics is being ignored. This is the result of a bug/programming error of some sort in the draft file generator program. It kind of stinks to see every qb have 0 ints, etc. Ethan said he was going to pass it on in case there was a future update coming.

I think I need to adjust the player ratings some, it doesn't seem to be producing enough good top draft picks. I'll try to work on it some tonight, and will hopefully be able to post it soon.

It won't be the most user friendly thing to use probably. You'll have to use it to generate a csv file. Then use Solecismic draft file generator. Then open it with 3ric's draft file editor and paste the last row of stats back in.

[Franklinnoble]

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I emailed support about some issues. The biggest issue was that by converting the file from a csv to faf file, the last column of statistics is being ignored. This is the result of a bug/programming error of some sort in the draft file generator program. It kind of stinks to see every qb have 0 ints, etc. Ethan said he was going to pass it on in case there was a future update coming.

I think I need to adjust the player ratings some, it doesn't seem to be producing enough good top draft picks. I'll try to work on it some tonight, and will hopefully be able to post it soon.

It won't be the most user friendly thing to use probably. You'll have to use it to generate a csv file. Then use Solecismic draft file generator. Then open it with 3ric's draft file editor and paste the last row of stats back in.
That's good enough for me. I just want random .csv files I can make every year, and maybe throw a few historical names in there... The college stats aren't a big deal for me... I never use them.

Thanks for the update! http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Cap Ologist]

Released! (http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showthread.php?p=569585#post569585)

[Franklinnoble]

Released! (http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showthread.php?p=569585#post569585)
You are my hero.

[Cap Ologist]

You are my hero.

:)

[Rasmuth]

Lets say you create a csv. file for a draft and create 200 players ranging from fodder to great...then used the FOF2004 draft utility...does it work well rounding out the draft with weak players?

[Franklinnoble]

Lets say you create a csv. file for a draft and create 200 players ranging from fodder to great...then used the FOF2004 draft utility...does it work well rounding out the draft with weak players?
You have to have 800 players in the .csv file. Won't work otherwise.

So, use Cap's generator to make the 800 player .csv file. Modify the 200 or so that you want, and leave the rest. That's what I'd do...