Editing Rosters

Horks · 07-26-2009, 11:53 AM

So I've decided to take on a project. The project is to make a 1957 League with 3 sub leagues (third being PCL). I'm curious about editing rosters, and what the best way to go about doing this is?

Currently, I filled the team with fictional players, and was going to use the ingame editor to edit each fictional player into something recognizing a PCL player. This turns to be very very tedious. Just this morning, I found the Import/Export Roster option, and I'm convinced this is the tool I need to use, but I thought I'd ask some questions before I just go testing around (maybe you can save me time).

1) Should I export, and edit the exported file, then import the same file? Or should I just use the export as a template, and create a new file to import?

2) The export file says "Player and team names are purely cosmetical and will not be used when importing rosters from this file!" What does that mean exactly? Does that mean I'm going to have to rename all the players once I put them back in? What about the historical rosters I'm trying to import for the NL & AL teams? Do I have to reimport them AFTER i do my edited rosters?

Those are my questions of the technical nature. I have some more opinionated questions about how I should do all this. These are questions I'm specifically looking for answers for, just issues I've come across while working on this idea.

1) PCL Rosters are not so impressive. History says PCL teams had enough money to keep some talent from moving to the NL/AL, but I'm not seeing it on the 1957 rosters :S I'm reconsidering how true to life I want to recreate these rosters. Maybe I should come up with some sort of massive 8 team expansion? Problem with this is, it won't catch the feeling that these are PCL teams battling against the well established if they have too many of the well established players from those well established teams...

2) NL & AL teams are well paired around the northeast corner of the country, while the PCL is 8 teams, mainly in California. Where NL/AL make natural matchups, PCL matchups are within their own league. This, and the issue below, are probably some of the reasons why there never was a third major league. (That and the National League stepped on their cake, when the Dodgers and the Giants moved out.)

3) Traditional Playoff structures with 3 leagues is almost impossible. I've come up with many different interesting playoff systems that could be used, but sadly OOTP custom playoffs are not as customizable as I need them to be. I've restored to a simple seeded playoff structure. Ironically, the first season I ran, StL found their way via the wildcard slot to beat Brooklyn in the first ever all NL world series :P.

4) Adding the PCL in 1957 brings the MLB up to 24 teams. Over the next 50 years, real MLB expanded a lot more. How would the next expansions be? Maybe including another AAA league as a fourth major league? This is more fantasy than the PCL induction. I'm commited to solving this problem and problem #2 together, however it is (I want to keep the NL & AL teams where they were in 1957).

As a caveat, this baseball-reference.com page is the source I'm using for all my 1957 PCL roster info

EDIT: Heh, kinda funny my post about editing rosters falls right above a thread about a roster editing tool. Tools are good. Might be better than editing the 14MB comma delimited file I was going to try :S

EDIT2: Okay, that thread is full of hate and violence X-D I don't see a tool there, just talk about a possible tool. So I'm just going to put my blinders on, stick my fingers in my ears, and get to old fashioned text editing.

SteveP · 07-26-2009, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horks

Should I export, and edit the exported file, then import the same file?

This is what the export/import function is designed for. However, there is at least one, and perhaps more than one, bug in this function right now. The roster will export fine, but what comes back thru the import process may not be quite right. I have no idea when this is going to get fixed. Having said that, there is not reason why you can't try it out (as long as you are doing it on a copy of your league, so you can discard it if necessary).

Quote:

Or should I just use the export as a template, and create a new file to import?

Not entirely sure what you mean by that. You certainly don't need to create a "new" file for any reason. The exported roster will be organized precisely in the way required for the your league, and you don't want to get that messed up.

Quote:

The export file says "Player and team names are purely cosmetical and will not be used when importing rosters from this file!" What does that mean exactly? Does that mean I'm going to have to rename all the players once I put them back in? What about the historical rosters I'm trying to import for the NL & AL teams? Do I have to reimport them AFTER i do my edited rosters?

I don't remember seeing that message, but I believe the meaning is to warn users not to assume that the players names are important to importing players correctly. The game engine works off of Player ID #s and Team ID #s. If you get those #s messed up, the import will be messed up. You could do whatever you want with the names and it won't make any difference.

Horks · 07-26-2009, 03:22 PM

Excellent, thanks for the response. What I meant by making a template, is, can I create a new file with just the rosters I need to edit, and import that. I don't have to do it that way though, so it's not a big deal. I can just edit the exported file, and re-import it.

As for the bug, that's unfortunate. I'll still play around, and see what I can do to get what I want. There are plenty of little quarks with OOTP that I'm learning I just have to live with. I write it off as the price of a game with as much detail as this.

Horks · 07-26-2009, 05:09 PM

So, as I'm sitting here tearing apart the CSV files, so I can run some averages, to help fill in bits of data I can't generate about players, something crosses my mind...

All these players have Player ID #. When I want to create a new player, can I just create a player ID# for him, or maybe just leave that field blank and OOTP will notice the error, and fix it (haha, i'm betting this isn't the case)? Or do I HAVE to edit an existing player ID?

Thanks for the help, in advance

SteveP · 07-26-2009, 05:23 PM

Don't know for sure, but my bet is that you can create a new player ID# without any problem. If you give him a team ID#, he will be on that team, otherwise he'd be a free agent. Just a quick guess about that.

Horks · 07-26-2009, 07:13 PM

Hmm, I'm having ZERO luck with this. I exported the rosters, then imported that data into excel. Made some minor changes, just for testing purposes, and saved as a new file. Opened up the original export file, and pasted the changes from excel in. I did it this way to keep out any taint from excel doing some lame formatting. This way, I'm only really changing a few numbers between commas. I save the file, then go back into OOTP, click import, select the file, and it says "import successful" but the changes I made don't seem to have any effect.

The information I changed to be specific was player name (wasn't sure if this would change because of the comment in the file that I mentioned in the OP), birth date (day, month, year), batting, throwing, and position. I changed 25 players that OOTP had generated to fill the roster. None of these changes seem to be reflected at all. I doubled checked the import file, to make sure I had saved any changes, and I had. I tried to reimport, and it said successful, but the changes in the file are not present in the game :S

I didn't try to just make a new entry yet (only tried to edit existing entries). I'll see if I can create a person next, but from my current headbanging, I'm not very hopeful

SteveP · 07-26-2009, 07:59 PM

Sorry, don't really have a good guess to offer at this point. I can't think of why the players would still have the old data. But I admit to not being the most expert on what can go wrong with this function (other than for a bug that I know of), so maybe someone else will look in on this thread and suggest something.

Horks · 07-26-2009, 08:14 PM

I tried creating a new entry in the roster file. I simply copied an existing entry line, then added a 1 to the begining of the player ID. Same sort of thing, said it completed the import, but the player doesn't exist anywhere that I can see.

How do other people in the community edit rosters? Am I going about it the wrong way? Should I just be using the in game editor? Seems like it'd take a very long time, and still would not be headache free. Guess that's what I'm going to try next to see if I can get this to work.

Spritze · 07-26-2009, 09:39 PM

I just make Lahman compatible files and import those as a modded db. Works charmingly.

Horks · 07-27-2009, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spritze

I just make Lahman compatible files and import those as a modded db. Works charmingly.

GAH! You're a genious! Thank you for the suggestion

BMW · 07-27-2009, 10:45 AM

Spritze, do you have any caveats that you need to remember? (love your files by the way)

I make pseudo-Lahman files every season, and I know that I always have problems importing it on the first try, because I forget to tweak something here or there.

For instance, I know that in the past (I haven't tried OOTP X yet), you must use AL and NL as the league abbreviations in the pseudo-Lahman files.

I'm importing fictional leagues which have the abbreviations UL and FL, so I learned in my first year that I need to make them AL for the DH league and NL for the non-DH league.

Any other common pitfalls that you know of?

07-26-2009, 11:53 AM	#1
Horks Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 52	Editing Rosters So I've decided to take on a project. The project is to make a 1957 League with 3 sub leagues (third being PCL). I'm curious about editing rosters, and what the best way to go about doing this is? Currently, I filled the team with fictional players, and was going to use the ingame editor to edit each fictional player into something recognizing a PCL player. This turns to be very very tedious. Just this morning, I found the Import/Export Roster option, and I'm convinced this is the tool I need to use, but I thought I'd ask some questions before I just go testing around (maybe you can save me time). 1) Should I export, and edit the exported file, then import the same file? Or should I just use the export as a template, and create a new file to import? 2) The export file says "Player and team names are purely cosmetical and will not be used when importing rosters from this file!" What does that mean exactly? Does that mean I'm going to have to rename all the players once I put them back in? What about the historical rosters I'm trying to import for the NL & AL teams? Do I have to reimport them AFTER i do my edited rosters? Those are my questions of the technical nature. I have some more opinionated questions about how I should do all this. These are questions I'm specifically looking for answers for, just issues I've come across while working on this idea. 1) PCL Rosters are not so impressive. History says PCL teams had enough money to keep some talent from moving to the NL/AL, but I'm not seeing it on the 1957 rosters :S I'm reconsidering how true to life I want to recreate these rosters. Maybe I should come up with some sort of massive 8 team expansion? Problem with this is, it won't catch the feeling that these are PCL teams battling against the well established if they have too many of the well established players from those well established teams... 2) NL & AL teams are well paired around the northeast corner of the country, while the PCL is 8 teams, mainly in California. Where NL/AL make natural matchups, PCL matchups are within their own league. This, and the issue below, are probably some of the reasons why there never was a third major league. (That and the National League stepped on their cake, when the Dodgers and the Giants moved out.) 3) Traditional Playoff structures with 3 leagues is almost impossible. I've come up with many different interesting playoff systems that could be used, but sadly OOTP custom playoffs are not as customizable as I need them to be. I've restored to a simple seeded playoff structure. Ironically, the first season I ran, StL found their way via the wildcard slot to beat Brooklyn in the first ever all NL world series :P. 4) Adding the PCL in 1957 brings the MLB up to 24 teams. Over the next 50 years, real MLB expanded a lot more. How would the next expansions be? Maybe including another AAA league as a fourth major league? This is more fantasy than the PCL induction. I'm commited to solving this problem and problem #2 together, however it is (I want to keep the NL & AL teams where they were in 1957). As a caveat, this baseball-reference.com page is the source I'm using for all my 1957 PCL roster info EDIT: Heh, kinda funny my post about editing rosters falls right above a thread about a roster editing tool. Tools are good. Might be better than editing the 14MB comma delimited file I was going to try :S EDIT2: Okay, that thread is full of hate and violence X-D I don't see a tool there, just talk about a possible tool. So I'm just going to put my blinders on, stick my fingers in my ears, and get to old fashioned text editing. Last edited by Horks; 07-26-2009 at 12:30 PM.

07-26-2009, 05:09 PM	#4
Horks Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 52	So, as I'm sitting here tearing apart the CSV files, so I can run some averages, to help fill in bits of data I can't generate about players, something crosses my mind... All these players have Player ID #. When I want to create a new player, can I just create a player ID# for him, or maybe just leave that field blank and OOTP will notice the error, and fix it (haha, i'm betting this isn't the case)? Or do I HAVE to edit an existing player ID? Thanks for the help, in advance Last edited by Horks; 07-26-2009 at 05:10 PM.

07-26-2009, 07:13 PM	#6
Horks Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 52	Hmm, I'm having ZERO luck with this. I exported the rosters, then imported that data into excel. Made some minor changes, just for testing purposes, and saved as a new file. Opened up the original export file, and pasted the changes from excel in. I did it this way to keep out any taint from excel doing some lame formatting. This way, I'm only really changing a few numbers between commas. I save the file, then go back into OOTP, click import, select the file, and it says "import successful" but the changes I made don't seem to have any effect. The information I changed to be specific was player name (wasn't sure if this would change because of the comment in the file that I mentioned in the OP), birth date (day, month, year), batting, throwing, and position. I changed 25 players that OOTP had generated to fill the roster. None of these changes seem to be reflected at all. I doubled checked the import file, to make sure I had saved any changes, and I had. I tried to reimport, and it said successful, but the changes in the file are not present in the game :S I didn't try to just make a new entry yet (only tried to edit existing entries). I'll see if I can create a person next, but from my current headbanging, I'm not very hopeful Last edited by Horks; 07-26-2009 at 07:15 PM.

07-26-2009, 03:22 PM	#3
Horks Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 52	Excellent, thanks for the response. What I meant by making a template, is, can I create a new file with just the rosters I need to edit, and import that. I don't have to do it that way though, so it's not a big deal. I can just edit the exported file, and re-import it. As for the bug, that's unfortunate. I'll still play around, and see what I can do to get what I want. There are plenty of little quarks with OOTP that I'm learning I just have to live with. I write it off as the price of a game with as much detail as this.

07-26-2009, 05:23 PM	#5
SteveP Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 3,109	Don't know for sure, but my bet is that you can create a new player ID# without any problem. If you give him a team ID#, he will be on that team, otherwise he'd be a free agent. Just a quick guess about that.

07-26-2009, 07:59 PM	#7
SteveP Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 3,109	Sorry, don't really have a good guess to offer at this point. I can't think of why the players would still have the old data. But I admit to not being the most expert on what can go wrong with this function (other than for a bug that I know of), so maybe someone else will look in on this thread and suggest something.

07-26-2009, 08:14 PM	#8
Horks Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 52	I tried creating a new entry in the roster file. I simply copied an existing entry line, then added a 1 to the begining of the player ID. Same sort of thing, said it completed the import, but the player doesn't exist anywhere that I can see. How do other people in the community edit rosters? Am I going about it the wrong way? Should I just be using the in game editor? Seems like it'd take a very long time, and still would not be headache free. Guess that's what I'm going to try next to see if I can get this to work.

07-26-2009, 09:39 PM	#9
Spritze OOTP Historical Czar Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Bothell Wa Posts: 7,253	I just make Lahman compatible files and import those as a modded db. Works charmingly.

07-27-2009, 10:45 AM	#11
BMW Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2003 Location: New Jersey Posts: 2,030	Spritze, do you have any caveats that you need to remember? (love your files by the way) I make pseudo-Lahman files every season, and I know that I always have problems importing it on the first try, because I forget to tweak something here or there. For instance, I know that in the past (I haven't tried OOTP X yet), you must use AL and NL as the league abbreviations in the pseudo-Lahman files. I'm importing fictional leagues which have the abbreviations UL and FL, so I learned in my first year that I need to make them AL for the DH league and NL for the non-DH league. Any other common pitfalls that you know of?