More realistic ballpark generation

[eriqjaffe]

I was setting up a modern-day fictional league over the weekend, and I noticed that OOTP generated a very high number of Domes, as well as stadiums with turf instead of natural grass, both of which are becoming increasingly rare these days - there's only one true dome in MLB, and maybe two parks with turf now? It'd be nice if you could base the park generation off of what the current park makeup at a given point in time was.

To test out my theory, I created a league starting in 1946. Every park then was open, with grass. Domes wouldn't come on the scene for 19 years, turf for 20, and retractable roofs wouldn't show up in baseball for 43 years (30, if you want to count Montreal's planned retractable roof). Yet I wound up with 2 teams playing on turf, and [b]6[/] teams playing in parks with retractable roofs (one of those park was one with turf). That's 37.5% of the league, which is completely unrealistic for 1946. Yes, I can go back and edit them, but I really shouldn't have to.

Clearly, the historical database has information on the parks that were in use in a given year, so the game could check for the turf/roof percentages and apply that ratio to the parks that get generated. At the very least, it should be an option - "use historically accurate park types."

[blasek0]

This seems like a pretty neat concept, I'm a fan of it.

Also: An option to mass-apply park types to leagues or the entire league universe? IE, I could say "make all parks in this league universe grass" or "make every park a dome with grass". I think this ties in pretty neatly with my idea of being able to apply league-wide and universe-wide park factors.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by eriqjaffe

To test out my theory, I created a league starting in 1946. Every park then was open, with grass. Domes wouldn't come on the scene for 19 years, turf for 20, and retractable roofs wouldn't show up in baseball for 43 years (30, if you want to count Montreal's planned retractable roof). Yet I wound up with 2 teams playing on turf, and [b]6[/] teams playing in parks with retractable roofs (one of those park was one with turf). That's 37.5% of the league, which is completely unrealistic for 1946.

If you want to go further, you can add minimum, maximum, and average seating capacity to the list of things affected by the year/era. (Average seating capacity has actually gotten smaller in recent years.) You could also add the presence of lights in a ballpark (allowing night games) as being tied to the year/era.