A new way of "universing"

[jade_00]

Originally Posted by djday45

any
updates
for
this.

What would you like to know?

As far as timeframe - I have no idea, will take me some time.

[gocubsgo]

I already offered to take up a collection for Jade in order to speed up the process but alas he declined stating something about wanting to have a life, bah who needs a life.

[Scruff]

I would definitely contribute to that collection

[Rob Morris]

Is there an easy way of adding multiple fighters into this program?

[jade_00]

Originally Posted by Rob Morris

Is there an easy way of adding multiple fighters into this program?

As it stands, no. One at a time.

If you are tech savvy you can simply loop the macro that controls adding the fighters to run as many times as you like.

[gocubsgo]

Okay it is official i am not tech savy.

[Rob Morris]

Originally Posted by gocubsgo

Okay it is official i am not tech savy.

Me neither!!

[Rob Morris]

Originally Posted by gocubsgo

If you can find a source to copy the names from and then to paste them into the excel spreadsheet.

Is there an easy way to do this? Just copy and paste the names?

[jade_00]

Originally Posted by Rob Morris

Is there an easy way to do this? Just copy and paste the names?

If by add you mean make active - then no. If you just want to add fighters into the pool then copy away...

[Rob Morris]

Originally Posted by jade_00

If by add you mean make active - then no. If you just want to add fighters into the pool then copy away...

Yeah I mean add into the pool. Sorry for just a basic question dude.

[jade_00]

Originally Posted by Rob Morris

Yeah I mean add into the pool. Sorry for just a basic question dude.

No thats ok, the more people that participate the better.

What I think most people do is export their database to either an excel or xml format, and then simply copy the details into the pool.

[Rob Morris]

Originally Posted by jade_00

No thats ok, the more people that participate the better.

What I think most people do is export their database to either an excel or xml format, and then simply copy the details into the pool.

Is there a way of copying more than one fighter at a time in xml format? That's all I can see.

[Scruff]

Hey, just figured I'd check in on this . . . very much appreciate the hard work.

Just curious if there is any ETA, just rough ballpark, months away, weeks away, etc.?

Can't wait for this be complete, been putting off playing the game until it is.

Thanks again for creating this!

[jade_00]

Originally Posted by Scruff

Hey, just figured I'd check in on this . . . very much appreciate the hard work.

Just curious if there is any ETA, just rough ballpark, months away, weeks away, etc.?

Can't wait for this be complete, been putting off playing the game until it is.

Thanks again for creating this!

I have done some work on this, managed to fix a number of issues, including how to make multiple titles work with different criteria.

My target date is early November at the moment. Footy finals end in the last week of September, so I plan on stringing some serious hours together in October.

[jade_00]

I'm starting to remember how much my head hurts trying to do this..... but at least I'm getting somewhere.

Looking for some feedback on the following ideas:

The trick with this sheet, both the BETA that I initially presented and the one I am currently working on, is finding a core or central point from which everything else flows. Now on the first one, that was the Master Data, which basically contained the fighter, his record, career stage etc etc. Whilst that will still remain in the new sheet, I am leaning now towards creating a complex forward schedule which will be the main driving factor of the universe. Now what that means, is basically a fight schedule of somewhere between six months and a year will be present at all times. Ie. Fighter A is fighting one month from now and five months from now etc etc.

This will allow me to:

- Forecast, or schedule future fights (like in the real world)
- Show when the title/s are next going on the line (because the holder of the title will have a scheduled bout coming up). You'd know that the number one contender, for example, is fighting in three months, instead of clicking the button and hoping he fights this month, as my current sheet does.
- Allow for an injury generator (as some have requested)

A couple of interesting side effects:

- I can add in the capacity to run 'tournaments' within the universe, because I can independently schedule each bracket. Imagine, an eight man knock out tournament scheduled every year to run over three months to determine a title challenger or something like that.

Downsides:

One of the more common requests I have gotten is the capacity to manually enter a fight, if the ones generated by the universe are not to your liking. The more I think about this, the more I am thinking this is not a good idea. If you wanted to manually intervene all the time, why would you need my universe. Also, the initial motivation for creating this sheet was basically to have a program that did all the work for me (and you). I really want to maintain the randomness of the universe.

I am tightening the controls though, to make it easier to control how fighters act ie. the likelihood of fighting a certain fighter etc etc

If I go down the path I am thinking, I don't really want to leave the capacity to manually enter a fight, as it sort of contradicts the schedule, and the random behaviour of life in general.

Other developments:

- Figured out how to work multiple titles (that was tricky), and more then that, allow YOU to choose what titles exist, and under what criteria.
- Figured out how to adjust the ranking criteria on the fly ie. Maybe in your universe you want 50 fighters ranked, whereas I may want just ten.

Thoughts on any of this?

[Scruff]

Glad to hear from you again jade!

If I go down the path I am thinking, I don't really want to leave the capacity to manually enter a fight, as it sort of contradicts the schedule, and the random behaviour of life in general.

I would be in the camp of those who want the option to manually schedule. While your points make sense, some of us would like this program to run the 'nuts and bolts' of a universe, to schedule 90% of the fights, and 100% of the fights that we don't care about; but we would like more manual control at the top of divisions, to fix some of the things we think are wrong with real life in terms of who gets a shot, etc..

By restricting it too much, you are forcing everyone to go with your assumptions of what should be, etc..

- Figured out how to adjust the ranking criteria on the fly ie. Maybe in your universe you want 50 fighters ranked, whereas I may want just ten.

What about how fighters are ranked - I'm thinking of the algorithm itself. Can you explain it, and also, will we be able to tweak it if we have different ideas of how fighters should be ranked?

Really can't wait for this, thanks for the hard work! But I do think giving the individual the ability to tweak things to his own needs/likings and have the ability to override where he necessary is important.

[gocubsgo]

Jade glad to see you are making progress on this. I am okay not being able to manually schedule the fight and after thinking about it actually agree that the randomness would be pretty cool. I am all for less scheduling work on my part.

I love the multiple titles which was one of my biggest requests.

[Romultiltus]

Instead of being able to manually add an individual fight, is it possible to just substitute one (or both) of the fighters in a fight that was autmatically scheduled.

Sometimes you may find an auto-generated fight for a particular fighter that does not appeal to you or you would prefer to spoon-feed a fighter certain opponents (i.e. TC's).

[jade_00]

Originally Posted by Scruff

Glad to hear from you again jade!



I would be in the camp of those who want the option to manually schedule. While your points make sense, some of us would like this program to run the 'nuts and bolts' of a universe, to schedule 90% of the fights, and 100% of the fights that we don't care about; but we would like more manual control at the top of divisions, to fix some of the things we think are wrong with real life in terms of who gets a shot, etc..

By restricting it too much, you are forcing everyone to go with your assumptions of what should be, etc..

Well yeah, but that was sort of the point. I keep going back to the initial motivation for creating this, to create something everyone could use to create and maintain a universe without the work. Much as I try, I can't make it all things for everyone, i'd be better off creating an independent one for every person - however I will look further into this.

Originally Posted by Scruff

What about how fighters are ranked - I'm thinking of the algorithm itself. Can you explain it, and also, will we be able to tweak it if we have different ideas of how fighters should be ranked?

Really can't wait for this, thanks for the hard work! But I do think giving the individual the ability to tweak things to his own needs/likings and have the ability to override where he necessary is important.

At its core, the ranking system (as it stands, I have not gone back and looked at this again yet) works as such:

Behind the scenes (as in you can't see it, like real rankings, you don't see the mechanations), every fighter had a score (say 1000).

Each fight they have affects this score. Obviously at a basic level, they win it goes up, lose it goes down. The actual calculation is quite complex, but the changes in score are dictated by the result, and the quality of the opposition. Writing down the actual calculations would take me forever, but they are there to be seen in the existing sheet.

These results are then weighted, so that the most recent fights have a greater influence on the fighter then ones further back. I did this to avoid having a fighter who may have had a great career but has lost his last few getting consistently high rankings.

I then limit the number of fighters that get ranked based on this score.

In my opinion, it is the single most accurate ranking system I have seen, I am yet to come across, or think of one better.

Can I change it? Or make it user variable? Yes absolutely, but I would need specific information as to what you wanted. But believe me, I am so confident on the quality of the ranking system I have I would be suprised if anyone offered me something better!!

[jade_00]

Originally Posted by gocubsgo

Jade glad to see you are making progress on this. I am okay not being able to manually schedule the fight and after thinking about it actually agree that the randomness would be pretty cool. I am all for less scheduling work on my part.

I love the multiple titles which was one of my biggest requests.

The multiple title capacity is awesome, I've tested it and it works perfectly. Very pleased with it.

Keep in mind, when I say random, I don't really mean RANDOM. The scheduler gives very realistic bouts. Newcomers get fed tomato cans like real fighters, the champ fights the contenders etc etc. But yeah, on occasion he will duck the best, or he'll take on all comers. It works well.