Three schedule requests for one online universe

[Corsairs]

First, let me apologize in advance for this large and complex request, especially since I'm not sure if multiple schedule requests are permitted in one post. I was surprised to learn that I couldn't use the in-game schedule to create interleague/unbalanced schedules, so I'm turning to the expert. I'm new to custom schedules so I hope I'm providing the proper information. If there's anything else you need from me, just let me know.

I have three schedule requests, each for our online league (PEBA). One is for our Japanese LRS league, the second is for that league's AAA system, and the final is for the main PEBA league itself.

League of the Rising Sun (LRS)
Structure - 12 teams, 2 subleagues, each with 1 division and 6 teams
Interleague - Enabled. I don't know how much customization is allowed here, but I'll put forth my preferred setup:

• Two separate 12-game interleague sessions, both featuring 2-game series against each team in the opposing league. Session #1 would be scheduled to start the first Monday in June at subleague A's home parks; session #2 would be scheduled to start the first Monday in July at subleague B's home parks. Ideally, both sessions would wrap up within 2 weeks.

All-Star Game - Enabled. Ideally it would be scheduled for the second full week of July.
Game start times - A mix of day and night would be nice, though not required.
Series length - Either 3 or 4 game series would be just fine (of course if we can get the 2-game interleague series as well, that'd be perfect).
Schedule length - 144 games
Season start/end dates - This is where I could use some help. The scheduling demands of our league require that we start (and, more importantly, end) at a certain time. The preferred kickoff time would be the 1st Monday in May, but that's somewhat flexible (although starting on a Monday would be best). Much more critical is that the season wrap up in mid-October. We'll be utilizing a 2-round playoff (7H; 2H/3A/2H). What I'm shooting for is for the 2nd (championship) round to begin at the end of October (right at the same time the championship round is ending in our American league). My tests indicate that this will work if the LRS regular season ends around Oct. 16.

Minarai Doumei (MD)
Structure - 12 teams, 1 subleague, 2 divisions, 1 with 7 teams and 1 with 5 teams
All-Star Game - Enabled
Series structure - Unbalanced
Schedule length - 120 games
Season start/end dates - Should start on the same day as the LRS. End date should be in mid-September.

Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance (PEBA)
Structure - 24 teams, 2 subleagues, each with 2 divisions (6 teams/division)
Interleague - Disabled
All-Star Game - Enabled. Ideally it would be scheduled for the second full week of July. If it could be synced up so that both the PEBA and LRS All-Star games fall in the same week, that would be perfect.
Game start times - A mix of day and night would be nice, though not required.
Series length - Either 3 or 4 game series would be just fine.
Series structure - Balanced. It would be outstanding to have intradivisional match-ups dominating the last month of the season.
Schedule length - 162 games
Season start/end dates - Again, trying to coordinate the schedule so that it works in tandem with the LRS. The preferred kickoff time would be the 1st Monday in April (flexible, but again a Monday start is best). The key is to wrap up at the very end of September (the 30th, if possible). With our 3-round playoff system, that would allow us to conclude the playoffs no later than Oct. 31. If everything works to perfection, the LRS will be beginning its championship right when the PEBA is concluding its own.

Again, my apologies if this is too much detail and/or too much work. I'm thankful for anything that can be done with the info I've posted here.

[gmo]

Some initial thoughts before the league specific...

Playoffs are not possible to pin down exactly. If a league has tiebreakers added to the regular season the start of playoffs are delayed, while playoff rounds finished before 7 games mean the next round starts sooner.

For game times I can set the likelihood of times for each day of the week. E.g., Sat & Sun could be 70% 2pm and 30% 7pm while Mon-Fri could be 80% 7pm and 20% 2pm. If you want to pick percentages for each day you can.

LRS

Starting somewhere around the first of May should work out well with the season ending in mid-October. Synchronizing the ASG with the other league is fine, though it is relatively a bit early, especially if it breaks down needing to be the first week of July.

MD

The 7/5 layout instead of 6/6 makes this a little more complicated, but I think I have a plan mapped out. Each team plays 6 games against each team in the other division, and in the 7-team division there are 15 games against each division opponent while in the 5-team division there are 19-20 games against each division opponent.

PEBA

There are a couple of options already made. Would you preferred more unbalanced (25-26 games per division opponent, 6 games per interdivision opponent) or less unbalanced (18 games per division opponent, 12 games per interdivision opponent)? If neither of those work, something new in between with 21-22 per division opponent and 9 per interdivision opponent would probably work.

To make it end during the last week of September rather than allowing it to end during the first week of October, the start will need to be moved up from first week of April to the last week of March. I would try to keep the ASG in the second week of July, but it too may need to slide forward a week earlier.

[Corsairs]

Thank you very much for taking this on, gmo. In response to your points and questions:

Well that's neat that we can pick the % of day/night games for each day! Quick question: is it possible to set up a particular team to play mostly day games (e.g. the Cubs)? Anyway, let me give you my picks for day/night distribution (these can be used for each league):

• Monday, Thursday and Saturday: 30% 2 PM, 70% 7 PM
• Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday: 20% 2 PM, 80% 7 PM
• Sunday: 90% 2 PM, 10% 7 PM

Having the LRS start around the 1st of May sounds just great. I'll be adjusting the breaks between playoff series by hand to fine-tune the scheduling, so as long as the PEBA wraps up at the end of September and the LRS ends in mid-October we should be fine.

Your plan for the MD sounds just perfect.

Let's go with less unbalanced (18 intra, 12 inter) for the PEBA schedule. If there's a way to make a greater percentage of September games intradivision, that would be great.

Based on my tests, it looks like the latest the PEBA season would be able to safely end with the playoffs fitting into our overall league schedule would be Oct. 1. The ideal end date for the season would fall between Sept. 28 and Oct. 1. A day or two in either direction probably wouldn't make or break us, but generally speaking that's the range I'd shoot for. If hitting that target requires moving the PEBA start date and ASG upa week, that's an acceptable tradeoff.

That just leaves what to do with the LRS ASG. While I certainly would prefer it not get held too early in the season, I'm thinking about arranging owner voting for All-Stars. It would certainly be easier if both leagues were voting on their respective All-Stars simultaneously. But you're right; the first week of July would be just a pinch early for the LRS ASG. If the PEBA ASG has to be pushed forward a week, go ahead and schedule the LRS ASG for late July.

[gmo]

# 12 team schedule, 144 games
# Designed for the following configuration:
# 2 subleagues, each with 1 division, each with 6 teams
#
#
# 24 games against 5 other teams in division (12H/12A)
# 4 games against 6 teams in other subleague (2H/2A)
#
# Interleague games are played in two 2-week spans of six 2-game series
# First subleague hosts all games in first span beginning 5th week of season
# Second subleague hosts all games in next span beginning 9th week of season
#
# No team plays more than 20 straight days without an offday
#
# Generally homestands or roadtrips not longer than 14 games
# However may have extended homestands/roadtrips up to 25 games when
# spanning through interdivision games
#
# Game times distributed approximately
# * Monday, Thursday and Saturday: 30% 2 PM, 70% 7 PM
# * Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday: 20% 2 PM, 80% 7 PM
# * Sunday: 90% 2 PM, 10% 7 PM
#
# Season begins first Monday on or after May 1
# Season ends mid-October
#
# All-Star Game set for first Tuesday on or after July 11
#

[gmo]

#
# 12 team schedule, 120 games
# Designed for the following configuration:
# 1 subleague with 2 division, with 7 teams and 5 teams
#
# 7-team division
# 15 games against 5 other teams in division (6-9H/6-9A)
# 6 games against 6 teams in other division (3H/3A)
#
# 5-team division
# 19-20 games against 5 other teams in division (9-10H/9-10A)
# 6 games against 6 teams in other division (3H/3A)
#
#
# No team plays more than 20 straight days without an offday
#
# No homestands or roadtrips longer than 14 games
#
# Game times distributed approximately
# * Monday, Thursday and Saturday: 30% 2 PM, 70% 7 PM
# * Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday: 20% 2 PM, 80% 7 PM
# * Sunday: 90% 2 PM, 10% 7 PM
#
# Season begins first Monday on or after May 1
# Season ends mid-September
#
# All-Star Game set for first Tuesday on or after July 9
#

[gmo]

#
# 24 team schedule, 162 games
# Designed for the following configuration:
# 2 subleagues each with 2 divisions, each with 6 teams
#
#
# 18 games against 5 other teams in division (7-11H/7-11A)
# 12 games against 6 other teams in league (6H/6A)
# no interleague games
#
#
# No cases of more than 20 straight days without offday
#
# No homestands or roadtrips longer than 14 games
#
# Game times distributed approximately
# * Monday, Thursday and Saturday: 30% 2 PM, 70% 7 PM
# * Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday: 20% 2 PM, 80% 7 PM
# * Sunday: 90% 2 PM, 10% 7 PM
#
# Season begins first Monday on or after March 27
# Season thus ends late September
#
# All-Star Game set for first Tuesday on or after July 11
#

[dcpcarmona]

GMO,

You have definitely found you niche within this small OOTP community. Great work, man!

dcc

[gmo]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

is it possible to set up a particular team to play mostly day games (e.g. the Cubs)?

Because schedules get recycled season-to-season but with the teams rearranged, trying to associate a particular team with a particular game time is of little use. The same thing hinders time zone usage. Giving one team all day games is fine, but it is likely next season that it will be a different team in that team's division playing all day games the next season.

The year-to-year changes also limit where exactly events occur. If you start the last Monday in March, the end date is going to vary as much as the start date (and ASG, etc), which is a week. That is just the limit of how precise it can be.

I did try to line up everything as best I could among these three. Thanks for spelling things out as clearly as you did. Let me know if there are any problems.

[Corsairs]

This is absolutely brilliant work, gmo. I can't thank you enough for your efforts.

Let me leave off with one last question. If sometime down the road I felt like changing the start date of the PEBA schedule to the first Monday on or after the 29th of March (two days later than right now) and pushing the All-Star game up a week, would it be as simple as just using Notepad to edit the "start_day" field to "29" and "allstar_game_day" field to "100"? Or would that mess up the schedule grid?

[gmo]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

If sometime down the road I felt like changing the start date of the PEBA schedule to the first Monday on or after the 29th of March (two days later than right now) and pushing the All-Star game up a week, would it be as simple as just using Notepad to edit the "start_day" field to "29" and "allstar_game_day" field to "100"? Or would that mess up the schedule grid?

Changing the start day is exactly as routine as you describe. That can be done whenever in any case with the only repercussions of changing where games fall on the calendar.

The ASG is not so simple. There is a break around day 107 with no games, but day 100 has regular games. So an ASG there would not be during a break. What you could do though is manually switch the games during the week where the ASG is now and the week before to where you might want to put it. On the GAME lines simply add 7 or subtract 7 from the # in day="#". I think it would be any games on day #s 99-105 to which you add 7 and day #s 106-112 to which you subtract 7.

Moving around games like that in this particular case would break up the chunk of interdivision games that currently begin immediately after the All-Star break by inserting into it the week of division games that currently precede the All-Star break. That sort of thing will happen with moving games that way. But at least in this case it would not lead to playing the same opponent in consecutive series.

[Corsairs]

Thank you so much, gmo. We'll be moving forward using the schedules you created. I really appreciate it; this will be a big boost in realism for our league.

[Corsairs]

We just completed our first season using your custom schedules, gmo, and they were fabulous. The experience is incredibly more authentic than with what OOTP was generating on its own.

Having gone through a full season now, I have a better idea of how I'd like these two leagues to interact schedule-wise. I was wondering if you would be able to make these tweaks to these two schedules (NOTE: PEBA is the 162-game non-interleague schedule; LRS is the 144-game interleague schedule):

• PEBA: Can the start of the season be pushed back 4 days to the first Monday on or after March 31 and still end on a end-of-September/start-of-October Sunday?
• PEBA: All-Star Game moved back one day (from mid-July Tuesday to Wednesday). Under the current schedule that would be day 108 instead of day 107, though if the first change is made I guess that would change.
• LRS: All-Star moved back from day 72 to day 94 (first Wednesday on or after Aug. 3). Or does this have to be a Thursday and day 95 to hit the Aug. 3 date? If so, that's fine. As long as it's no earlier than Aug. 3, it will work.
• LRS: Can the season end be pushed back 4 days so that it ends on a mid-late-October Sunday instead of a Wednesday?

Thank you so much for your assistance! Just let me know if you need more info from me.

[gmo]

For the PEBA if I understand you correctly I think you can simply tweak the parameters in the file yourself. Just change on the SCHEDULE line from start_day="27" & allstar_game_day="107" to start_day="31" & allstar_game_day="108". The All-Star Break is 4 days, so there will still be an offday after the ASG if it is one day later.

For the LRS would you be okay with starting the season a half week later so it ends a half week later? Well, it does not have to mean "later" really. I mean instead of beginning the first Monday on or after May 1, the first Friday on or after May 1. Details remain to be determined, but I wanted to check on this before going forward.

[Corsairs]

Ah, I think I see what you're saying on how to adjust the PEBA schedule myself. Certainly making the changes at the top of the file will be a snap. One question: Do I need to adjust the "GAME day" lines to account for the All-Star Game being pushed back a day? Right now, game days 106-109 are being skipped as part of the All-Star Break. Should I adjust that so that there are games scheduled for Day 106 and breaks scheduled for days 107-110?

For the LRS, what would be the disadvantages of keeping the league start on the first Monday on or after May 1? Knowing that would probably determine my answer. Part of my goal is to minimize the gap between the start date of the two leagues. If the LRS start date stayed where it is, their Spring Training would be starting right as the PEBA began regular season play, which would be ideal. However, if leaving the LRS start date where it is causes major scheduling problems (like too many off days or incredibly long road trips), then yes, I'd consider pushing the date back.

I'm thinking about the dates I requested for the All-Star Games. We normally sim 7 days, from Monday to Sunday. The problem I ran into last season was that I had to stop a sim on Saturday so that OOTP didn't auto-select All-Stars. Our owners vote online for those and I wanted to allow them to do so right up until the time of the game. However, I'm suddenly realizing that I may be causing a problem by asking you for Wednesday All-Star Games. That would mean that there would be games played on Monday, which could be weird; would those games be part of the previous series or would they be part of the series that immediately follows the break? Perhaps it would be less disruptive schedule-wise if the All-Star Games were scheduled for a Saturday?

[gmo]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

One question: Do I need to adjust the "GAME day" lines to account for the All-Star Game being pushed back a day? Right now, game days 106-109 are being skipped as part of the All-Star Break. Should I adjust that so that there are games scheduled for Day 106 and breaks scheduled for days 107-110?

No, do not adjust all the individual GAME lines. The All-Star Break will still be the 4 days of 106-109, it would just be that the ASG itself would be on the 3rd day of that break instead of the second.

For the LRS, what would be the disadvantages of keeping the league start on the first Monday on or after May 1? Knowing that would probably determine my answer. Part of my goal is to minimize the gap between the start date of the two leagues. If the LRS start date stayed where it is, their Spring Training would be starting right as the PEBA began regular season play, which would be ideal. However, if leaving the LRS start date where it is causes major scheduling problems (like too many off days or incredibly long road trips), then yes, I'd consider pushing the date back.

As much as possible I want to keep the schedule in its completed structure because that is so much easier than having to break it apart and piece it back together. For the PEBA, if it was a house as that would be done with the above change is basically giving it a little different address (changing start date) and putting the Christmas tree near a different window (changing the day for the ASG). The house as a completed structure is not being moved or changed at all.

For the LRS, what I was suggesting in the shift was like the changing the address. There is another option. To make the season a half-week (one series) longer I can take away the 4th game from three series between opponents who play 4-game series against each other and use those to build an addition 3-game series. That will be easy and like thinning out Christmas lights to be able to cover a little more of the house (making offdays a little more common through the schedule to add to its length).

Shifting the All-Star Break by 3 is a little bit more work, but I think not too bad in just shifting series. Like moving a door to a different place in the wall. I expect the same as for the PEBA for the ASG - making the break 4 days and putting the game on the 3rd day (Wed). I think that your concern about games moving to Monday before an All-Star Game on Wednesday is unfounded and based on thinking that the ASG has to be the 2nd day of the break. It can fall anywhere, even outside the break if one is not careful! As long as you are okay with the Mon-Thu break with Wed game it should be fine.

[Corsairs]

You nailed it regarding my misunderstanding with the All-Star Game. Now I get how that works, and simply moving it to the third day of the break is a perfect solution. That will allow us to sim up to Sunday as normal since the game won't auto-select All-Stars until Monday. Absolutely perfect. I'll make that adjustment myself then. And yes, this would also be an ideal solution for the LRS, extending the break to 4 days and placing the ASG on a Wednesday.

Okay, so that just leaves how to handle the schedule shifts. First, just so I'm clear as I prepare to edit the PEBA's schedule, is it enough for me to simply change the "start_day" line from "27" to "31" to achieve the 4-day push-back? That wouldn't cause any problems with the first scheduled series of the season, nor would it push the All-Star Game date back, right? I won't touch the "GAME day" lines as you advise.

As for the LRS, let's go with your suggestion to remove the 4th game from 3 series and create an additional 3-game series. It sounds like that would be easier for you, and I think it's a fine solution. I'm sure the league's owners won't mind having a few extra off-days to rest their starters.

[gmo]

As a first note, make sure to reimport the schedule files into the game with the changes made. They cannot take effect until the game loads them. Related to that is the issue of from where you load the schedules. If you load them from anywhere besides the game Schedules folder it should be no issue. But...

If you load from the Schedules folder, make sure any old versions with the same parameters are not in there because the game will automatically cycle through all schedules it finds in that folder that fit the specified parameters. If you just change the singe PEBA file, no problem. With a second LRS file (a2), I recommend making a "storage" subfolder in the Schedules folder and putting the original LRS schedule (a1) in that. If both are just in the Schedules folder the game will alternate between the two.

Yes, simply change the "start_day" parameter (and do not forget the adding one to allstar_game_day too). That will just pick up an move the whole schedule. Whereas now it would have a start date somewhere between Mar27 & Apr2, an ASG between Jul11 & Jul17, and an end date between Sep24 & Sep30, it will be changed to a start date somewhere between Mar31 & Apr6, an ASG between Jul16 & Jul22 (the ASG possible range moves up by one more day because it was shifted one day too), and an end date between Sep28 & Oct4. I hope this is what you were meaning to have.

You should also note that to make sure the ASG is never earlier than Aug3, I moved the start date for the new LRS schedule from the first Monday on or after May1 to the first Monday on or after May2. Without doing that the ASG would occasionally be on Aug2. If that is okay, then you could just change the start date info in the file like you will do for the PEBA. If you keep it, you presumably would want to shift the MD to match the new LRS. I assumed that a single day shift would be insignificant.

[gmo]

#
# 12 team schedule, 144 games
# Designed for the following configuration:
# 2 subleagues, each with 1 division, each with 6 teams
#
#
# 24 games against 5 other teams in division (12H/12A)
# 4 games against 6 teams in other subleague (2H/2A)
#
# Interleague games are played in two 2-week spans of six 2-game series
# First subleague hosts all games in first span beginning 5th week of season
# Second subleague hosts all games in next span beginning 9th week of season
#
# No team plays more than 20 straight days without an offday
#
# Generally homestands or roadtrips not longer than 14 games
# However may have extended homestands/roadtrips up to 25 games when
# spanning through interdivision games
#
# Game times distributed approximately
# * Monday, Thursday and Saturday: 30% 2 PM, 70% 7 PM
# * Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday: 20% 2 PM, 80% 7 PM
# * Sunday: 90% 2 PM, 10% 7 PM
#
# Season begins first Monday on or after May 2
# Season ends mid-October
#
# All-Star Game set for first Tuesday on or after Aug 3
#

[Corsairs]

I've just had a chance to test this schedule out and it looks to be absolutely perfect. Bumping up the LRS start date to the first Monday on or after May 2 is absolutely no problem whatsoever. And thank you for the reminder on the MD schedule; I went ahead and made that adjustment.

Let me just double check on one point: I notice it says the LRS All-Star Game is set for the first Tuesday on or after Aug. 3. Should that read the first Wednesday on or after Aug. 3? I'm guessing that's what was meant.

Thanks to your explanations, I was successfully able to modify the PEBA schedule. Yes, an end time between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4 was roughly what I was shooting for. Furthermore, after consideration, I decided that keeping the All-Star Break scheduled for the second week of July would be optimal. So I tried a little hatchet job. I cut-and-paste the GAME day 103-105 block directly ahead of the day 99 block. Then I renamed the 99-102 block to 106-109 and scheduled the All-Star Game into the newly created gap on Day 101. I don't know if that explanation makes any sense, but after testing it in game it seemed to work out just great.

So you've not only have you concocted a beautiful new schedule; you've helped me help myself. Bravo! Now we get to see how good a job I've done with my planning. I've tried charting out all the possible permutations of how the playoff sim schedule could unfold, but I'm certain I'll find a surprise or two waiting for me when I get there. But that's for another time. Right I just want to say a big, "Thank you!" for your efforts.

[gmo]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

Let me just double check on one point: I notice it says the LRS All-Star Game is set for the first Tuesday on or after Aug. 3. Should that read the first Wednesday on or after Aug. 3? I'm guessing that's what was meant.

Yes, that is correct. I make mistakes in the description text more often than I wish because that is usually a last step, typically involves cut-paste-edit, and does not affect the schedule itself.

Glad you were able to learn more about how the schedules work and do a little jiggling within the files yourself.