OOTP Companion: dat file reader, Team Rater, Dev Tracker, HOF Stds, graphs, wOBA & more!
 

I'm pleased to announce the release of a new utility pack for OOTPX and OOTP11 called Lighthousekeeper's OOTPX Companion, which is the result of 1000+ hours of development over the last 6 months. It is still a little buggy, but I wanted to share this, warts and all. This utility is currently disabled for online leagues (due to cheating concerns), but is fully functional for solo leagues.

Download:
The latest version (v1.8; 8/21/2010) can be downloaded from http://www.filesonic.com/file/H3KDpDu. Just extract the zip file and run the setup.exe file.

Features:
This utility provides some functionality that has never been available before. Unlike StatsLab or OOTPOU, this is an application you install on your local machine, and thus is better geared for solo players (although those in online leagues can use it too). Here is a listing of the features:
• Dat File Reader: reads many of the OOTP database files directly, exposing many thousands of stats/attributes/ratings, including hundreds of previously hidden fields. This gives you unprecedented access to your universe's data.
•HOF Analyzer: let's you query HOF candidates (based on retirement year and years of service) and calculates HOF Standards, Fibbonacci Wins, and Black Ink to help you in determining who in your universe is HOF worthy
•Player Dev Tracker: Lets you track the development of player ratings and potential for an unprecedented number of ratings including: batting, pitching (incl velocity, stamina, & pitches), fielding, and baserunning. All ratings can be graphed over time.
•Team Rater: Uses the actual depth charts and pitching rotations stored in the game for each team to rank each team. This is a useful tool to run at the start of each season to see which teams are expected to win the most.
•Playoff Leaderboard: A single-season and career playoff leaderboard
•Plus More: In-season batting average & home run graphs, wOBA calculation, html export (buggy), multi-skin interface, "Similar Players", and more...

Screenshots:

1. Dat File Reader (showing Excel-like filtering and wOBA column):
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/5416/woba.jpg

2. HOF Analyzer:
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/8526/hofw.jpg

3. Player Dev Tracker:
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/632/devr.jpg

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/7532/devgraph.jpg

4. Team Rater
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/165/teamrate.jpg

5. Similar Players
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/6831/playery.jpg

Change History:
v1.1 (3/15/2010)
* Disabled application for online leagues
* Added basic playoff leaderboard

v1.2 (3/19/2010)
* Fix bug where some leagues with historicals couldn't load
* Fix bug when reading leagues with unusually high offensive output
* Allow people to load files outside of MyDocuments
* Normalized Team Rater scores to 100 scale
* Added ERA and Holds to Playoff Leaderboard

v1.3 (6/22/2010)
* Now works for both OOTP10 and OOTP11
* Added rudimentary 'Similar Player" feature
* Improved look and feel on player details page

v1.4 (7/4/2010)
* Fix bug where some Historical v11 leagues couldn't load

v1.5 (7/13/2010)
* Fix more bugs where some Historical v11 leagues couldn't load
* Update to work with OOTP v11.2.15

v1.6 (7/15/2010)
* Fix bug where some ootp11 leagues were erroneously regarded as online leagues

v1.7 (8/15/2010)
* Added career playoff leaderboard
* Fixed issue loading leagues that have players with no names

v1.8 (8/21/2010)
* Fixed error in loading some league files
* Fix bug on playoff leaderboard showing minor league stats

Known Issues:
----------------
1. Career stats combining multiple major leagues in cases where your universe has multiple major leagues.
2. Exceptions when displaying player development tracker
3. Player dev graphs checkboxes not working

Link gives a "403 Forbidden" error.

please try again

Lighthouse, this is great! I have mostly played with the HOF feature. I created my own rating system previously based off of similar categories. This will save me tons of time.

Thank you. I will let you know any issues I run into.

how do I get it to look in a different directory other than C:\My Documents?

Thanks, works now.

Cool utility. Tony M (Or Markus, clearly) might be able to help on what some of the UNKNOWN fields are.

nevermind...got it to find my league file by going into options and setting the default dir as well as the default lg. loading it up now...thanks! will provide some feedback after I play around with it.:thumbup:

Initial thoughts/questions
 

1. Wow. Awesome. :)
2. Ease of use is amazing. Can't be much simpler than pointing to a .lg folder and saying "go"
3. Stats: Is there a way to filter career stats and HOF calculations based on League ID? Looks like it's taking cumulative total of players stats at all levels
4. Custom views options...can't quite figure out how to use it. Functional yet?
5. Great start to a much needed utility. Thanks!!!

3. Career stats are only calculated for "major" leagues. If your universe features multiple major leagues, then the career stats are combining for both and not allowing you to filter for one. I will add this to the list of things to fix.
4. Custom views isn't implemented yet.

ah, ok. yes I have multiple major leagues in my universe. makes sense. Thanks!

This is simply one of the best utilities I've ever seen for any sports game. And I only say that on the chance that there is one out there better. It could very well be the best.

Thanks!

Does this utility have any restrictions on access to data in online leagues? I could see how online GM's might be able to use this to get more accurate ratings, particularly in talent only leagues.

Any way to get this to work on an Apple computer?

What version of OOTP are you running this against? I can't get anything to display (apart from scouting) on 10.4.36

Yeah if there isn't any restrictions this utility would kill talent only and scouting leagues.

That's why neags23 when he used my decoding dll in his scouting tracker put in a test at the start to limit it to a single team if it was an online league.

In world.dat there is an online league flag and then you need to do some validity check against the team they say they are to verify their management and then restrict the program to that team only.

Being able to see what everyone else is offering in the offers.dat doesn't help matters either. I like the utility and all but...

Wow, was any consideration given to online leagues before developing and releasing it? I appreciate all the work done by modders but to release something like this is completely irresponsible.

I really hope the mods delete this thread.

Any way for this to work on a mac? :(

Guys, due to concerns about the impact of this mod on online leagues, I have temporarily taken this thread offline. I am talking to Lighthousekeeper about it offline.

Thanks Steve. I think a simple fix would be to look for the online league flag in World.dat that Tony M mentioned and not run the program if it is an online league.

It was developed against 10.4.31 (I didn't even know there was a v36 out there). I'm not sure if the db structure changed from v31 to v36. If yes, then it is probably very buggy against v36.

I'm not sure - it needs .net framework 3.5 to run. Not sure if macs can run taht.

Can you PM me the world.dat structure (or pointer to the online league indicator byte). That would save me some time in implementing an online league checker.

My main focus is for solo leagues. I wanted a utility that could save a lot of the effort I had been manually doing each season such as preseason team ranking, player development tracking, etc.

This looks amazing! I can't wait to use it it on my solo play league once the online league issues get cleared up!

I, too, would like to know if there is anyway for this to work on a Mac! I would be very interested to use it and hope it can be utilized on a Mac as well.

In response to the above poster that believes this utility is irresponsible and ought to be removed by the mods I would ask the mods to not remove this thread just because the mod was not made for online leagues. Since OOTP is not a game that was made solely for online play, limiting the ability of people to develop and maintain their solo leagues the way they desire (which is what this utility does for solo leagues) should not be taken away.

Regardless of the impact of this utility to online leagues, deleting this thread because "consideration" was not given to online leagues before "developing and releasing it" would be a bad move because then either the OOTP product will be forging the future with a preference towards online gameplay OR it will create a scenario where only mods/utilities that are an advantage (or applicable) to both solo leagues as well as online leagues will be developed or, at least, allowed to be posted.

For example, by the same logic utilized above regarding the "need" to remove this thread - why wouldn't the StatsLab utility have to be removed since it is for online leagues only and one COULD argue (I don't, just pointing out a contrary point) that that utility should be removed because there was no consideration of solo leagues before creating a positive utility that only online leagues could utilize.......the point is that different people have different interests - some are interested more in online leagues while others are more interested in solo leagues.

It seems like Tony M. has answered this issue anyway in a previous post above - I would ask that those that prefer the online gameplay not try and control the solo play as well - if someone in your online leagues uses this utility to their advantage then maybe that is not the person you want in your league - or perhaps better measures should be taken to ensure that they do not have access to the information....OR online leagues could fully embrace it and everyone could be allowed to use it so then it wouldn't be an unfair advantage - and if everyone is using it then it will be harder to gain an "advantage" when everyone is going to be focusing on the same players based upon their talent/scouting....which is what is done anyway in leagues that use scouting with minor variations depending on the scout/budget.

Well, thats my two-cents...hope to hear this can be used on a Mac!

Well, Battists and the others have very valid concerns regarding online leagues, so I fully support their decision for taking the utility down. The utility makes it too easy to cheat in online leagues in a variety of ways (and you would never now who's cheating), which would in turn make playing in online leagues not as fun since there's always that spectre of potential cheating looming.

TonyM has provided me with some input that I can use to secure this up - hopefully I can get to it this weekend.

throw the mac away and buy a pc? that should solve it.

I think you missed my point. My point wasn't that this should be removed because it wasn't developed for online league use. The point is that this tool could be used to cheat in online leagues and nobody would know who was using it. There was no way to limit access to the information and no way to control or monitor its use. Its not just an issue of ratings, the utility would have allowed players to look at exactly what others teams were offering for contracts in Free Agency. I can't stress enough what kind of impact this would have had on the OOTP community. It would absolutely kill the credibility of online leagues.

Asking to delete the thread was, admittedly, a knee jerk reaction on my part but it was very important that this mod not be distributed in it's current form.

That being said, it sounds like lighthousekeeper is taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening and I thank him for doing so.

where can i download this, who cares about online leagues. i wanna check it out!

Holy missed the point, Batman.

not really. he makes very good points, except for the mac part.

You could try this to run it on a Mac.

Main Page - Mono

I second that. I guess those of us who only play solo don't get a chance to try it out because of all the distrust. I wish I had seen this thread before it was shut down.

I couldn't care less for online leagues so why should I be banned from using this mod? If some jerk has to cheat in order to enjoy him self in online leagues then ban the jerk not the program.

the modified version will be ready in a couple days and will work for solo leagues.

Thanks for the update Lighthousekeeper (and all the work you've put in!), look forward to trying it out.

thanks lhk. I look forward to fiddling with this.

Don't get mad at lhk, I think battists and lhk had every right to take this down. If you had read it, lhk was saying that you wouldn't be able to tell if the "cheater" used the program in an online league.

How could you ban the jerk if you have no way of knowing whether or not he's using the program?

You're not banned from using this, you've just had to wait an extra week or so.

Modified version of the application has been released which does not work for online leagues. (In the future, I will provide some limited functionality for online leagues, but not at this time). The utility is fully functional for solo leagues.

Download:
The latest version (v1.1; 3/15/2010) can be downloaded from http://music-maven.com/OOTPXCompanion.zip. Just extract the zip file and run the setup.exe file.

Change History:
v1.1 (3/15/2010)
* Disabled application for online leagues
* Added basic playoff leaderboard

Thanks so much lighthousekeeper, both for making the changes and for not overreacting when I temporarily took it down. You handled it very gracefully, and I appreciate it!

Thanks,

Steve

Def agree with what Battists said...this was handled professionally and maturely. Thanks for not taking things personally. :thumbup:

I can't get it to install on Vista - it comes up with a can create instance of CLR something in mscoree.dll

Picture of error

can anyone else confirm that this doesn't work on vista? i don't have a vista machine to test on.

I have Vista, just tried it and I think I got farther than TonyM. It seemed to install fine, but when I tried to select my saved_games folder it wouldn't let me since I have it outside of my documents folder. So I set the folder locations in the options page thinking I could get around it that way, restarted it, but then an error showed up saying that wasn't supported.

Using Windows 7...latest patches. Got it to work although like kg my saved games weren't in the default so I had to define the path exit and then restart the app. works good. First couple times I clicked on Hall of Fame I got an unhandled exception, but then I clicked on general and then back to HOF and it read it fine. seems to be working now without issue.
Granted...I have a quad core and 9gb of ram...so maybe other people are running out of resources??
Oh...and I'm running Windows 7 64 bit too.
when I tried it last week it was on an xp machine with only 2gb of ram...same league file.

I figured out the problem I was having. In the options, for the "default save game" field I put the full path to my solo league folder. I then noticed that the pull down only listed the folder names of leagues in my "default save game folder". So I just put in the name of the league folder, restarted and it worked.

If I may, I'd recommend that you:
1) allow folders outside of the docs folder be selectable,
2) rename the "default save game folder" the "saved_games folder path", and
3) rename the "default save game" the "default league folder name".

I realize it may seem awfully minor, but those label changes should make it clearer what you want in those fields.

Thanks koohead for letting us know you didn't have the same problem. It made go back and figure out why it didn't work for me when it had for you.

EDIT: Oh, and LHK, when using the black skin some of the text and headings don't show. You might want to change them to something else for that skin. Otherwise, nice touch with the skins!