Optional Injury Reduction Modification
 

We've had a few (alright, more than a few) comments about the frequency of severe injuries in the game. Now, I still maintain that the results being produced are pretty close to reality, but we realize that a lot of people would rather see the injuries, particularly the long-term ones, toned down a bit. So, if you'd like fewer long-term injuries, we've created an alternate injury data file you can use to replace the default one in the game. It can be downloaded from http://misc.ootpdevelopments.com/hockey/injuries.dat

To install it, the injuries.dat file needs to be copied into the folder you'll be using to create the game: \quickstart_games\Historical.quick for historical games, \quickstart_games\OpeningDay.quick for everything else; you should back up the quickstart.dat file already in them before doing this in case you want to revert back to it later.

The file can also be moved into existing save folders for games you've already started, but we suggest you back those up first as we haven't tested it extensively with saved games - it shouldn't hurt anything, but there could be unanticipated problems.

In my testing, this reduces the number of players on NHL injured reserve lists by the end of the regular season by about 20-25%. I did this by making the least-serious of the major injuries more common relative to the rest, which should make the worst injuries somewhat rarer overall. I also made a few adjustments to the length of a lot of the more serious injuries.

Bear in mind this isn't going to give you an injury-free game; it's still well within the realm of possibility that you get an unlucky string of major injuries in a season. But over time, there should be a noticeable reduction.