SCHEDULE GENERATOR: make it so.

[texasmame]

Post your favorite food here if you want to finally see a schedule generator for OOTP:


Steak.

[David Watts]

Butter

[eriqjaffe]

I already ate. Well, Fishbreath did the cooking.

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=259786

[why_though126]

Originally Posted by eriqjaffe

I already ate. Well, Fishbreath did the cooking.

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=259786

In my experience it's best if you use their tool for your minor leagues. Difficult to make top league schedules as complex as necessary with it.

[Hageneezz]

Brussels sprouts

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A346E met Tapatalk

[WooBallFan43]

Palak paneer

[SkipBranham]

Smoked BBQ Baby Back Ribs

[bailey]

I asked my new BBF, Gemini, how difficult it was to make a schedule generator. She went on and on but this is the gist of it:

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by bailey

I asked my new BBF, Gemini, how difficult it was to make a schedule generator. She went on and on but this is the gist of it:

If it were simple it would have been done a long time ago and not just for OOTP.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by bailey

I asked my new BBF, Gemini, how difficult it was to make a schedule generator. She went on and on but this is the gist of it:

Related... Maybe six months ago I asked Chatgpt to create a vintage PCL style schedule for a specific year (sometime in the 1940's), where teams generally play 7 games per week, single games Tues thru Saturday with doubleheaders on Sunday (off days on Monday). And asked it to put doubleheaders on Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day. (I didn't even ask yet for OOTP schedule format: Just "4/1/1945,SF,LA" format.

Like what has turned out to be many other somewhat complex tasks requests of AI, the basic flow was this:

me: present request in general terms, ask if it can be done
AI: "Yes, I can do that for you! Just give me the details."
me: presents details
AI: gets to work, then offers a small sample
me: "That sample is nothing like what I requested." Gives details of what's wrong.
AI: "I see what the problem is..." Offers long explanation of what went wrong, and then, "I can fix this." Proceeds to work on it, provides another small sample...
me: "Brutal." Gives details of what's still quite wrong.
AI: Something along of the lines of "this is more complicated due to x,y, and z. But I can do this. It'll take time. I'll get to work on it and will let you know when complete."
me: checks back in a couple of days
AI: "I'm still working on it."
(the above two lines repeat a few times...)
AI, eventually: "Here's the schedule file you asked for."
me: reviews the - literally - four lines of schedule output, and not anywhere close to the correct format... SMH... Replies to AI: "This couldn't be further from what I requested. Did you essentially just BS me the whole time by saying you could do this?"
AI: "I'm sorry but yes, in my efforts to appear helpful I overstated my capabilities. I can't do this."
me: Let's just say I replied with some choice words...

And the above essentially repeated with Gemini and one other AI. And, as noted above, not just with schedule generation, but with other somewhat technical tasks (where I invested considerably more time in spelling out requirements than I did with the schedule request)... These AI's are great for some stuff but are *really* lacking with other stuff. Especially with accuracy and transparency. You can ask AI for Def Leppard's discography, for a list of junkyards in your area, or for a recipe for Olive Garden's pasta fagiole, and you can be pretty confident in its reply. But when whenever AI faced with uncertainty, it will essentially lie to you - with confidence.

[textilemonster]

Originally Posted by Sweed

If it were simple it would have been done a long time ago and not just for OOTP.

Oof, I'd be super happy if someone just created a site or little app where we could create an OOTP schedule, save it as a proper file, and import it.
I don't know about everybody else, but my current biggest gripe is that we can't set an end date to a season, and the game seems to hate travel/rest days. Want a 100-game season that starts in April? Enjoy a three-month break between the end of the season and the start of playoffs in October!
(Unless I'm missing something, which is certainly possible.)

[kq76]

I wish everyone who ever asks for this would just try to make their own schedule, not alone a schedule generator. Unless they were an absolute genius, they'd probably very soon say to themselves, "yikes, this isn't easy!", or they have very low expectations / requirements.

Even if you were willing for everyone at OOTP to not add anything else to the game, but work on this for two years straight, they still might not be able to make a schedule generator up to some of our expectations. Keep in mind, it wouldn't just be about making a good schedule themselves, but making a program that takes varied input and then makes schedules that satisfies everyone's expectations on its own! That's an almost guaranteed fruitless endeavour if I ever heard of one.

Really, the best option is to just find one that's already made (and it's not like the selection isn't there, there's dozens and dozens of them), check it out for yourself whether it does what you want, and then go with it. I've made a few of my own, but it's really not worth it (it can definitely be a fun and interesting exercise, but it stopped being fun for me after the first one I was really happy with). Now I just look to see if gmo has made one for my league structure and I go with it. I mention gmo because I trust that he's about as picky about them as I am, but there might be other people out there who make just as good if not even better schedules.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by kq76

I wish everyone who ever asks for this would just try to make their own schedule, not alone a schedule generator. Unless they were an absolute genius, they'd probably very soon say to themselves, "yikes, this isn't easy!", or they have very low expectations / requirements.

Even if you were willing for everyone at OOTP to not add anything else to the game, but work on this for two years straight, they still might not be able to make a schedule generator up to some of our expectations. Keep in mind, it wouldn't just be about making a good schedule themselves, but making a program that takes varied input and then makes schedules that satisfies everyone's expectations on its own! That's an almost guaranteed fruitless endeavour if I ever heard of one.

Really, the best option is to just find one that's already made (and it's not like the selection isn't there, there's dozens and dozens of them), check it out for yourself whether it does what you want, and then go with it. I've made a few of my own, but it's really not worth it (it can definitely be a fun and interesting exercise, but it stopped being fun for me after the first one I was really happy with). Now I just look to see if gmo has made one for my league structure and I go with it. I mention gmo because I trust that he's about as picky about them as I am, but there might be other people out there who make just as good if not even better schedules.

Probably an obvious answer, but why can't OOTP simply add all the schedules the modders have created over the years to the game?

[kq76]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Probably an obvious answer, but why can't OOTP simply add all the schedules the modders have created over the years to the game?

They could, but I don't think people would want all those files, as relatively small as they might be, added to their download. What they could do to make it better is make them downloadable from within the game, like steam workshop downloads. But for something that most of us only do maybe once or twice a year, would adding that functionality really be worth their time investment over something else? I don't know. I do think it would be a better time investment than making a generator though.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by kq76

They could, but I don't think people would want all those files, as relatively small as they might be, added to their download. What they could do to make it better is make them downloadable from within the game, like steam workshop downloads. But for something that most of us only do maybe once or twice a year, would adding that functionality really be worth their time investment over something else? I don't know. I do think it would be a better time investment than making a generator though.

As someone that had to buy OOTP25 twice, because he made a version briefly unplayable by simply trying to download and install the Integreated Negro League mod, I love the idea of putting them on the Steam Workshop. The Workshop is one of the many reasons I purchase the game from Steam.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Probably an obvious answer, but why can't OOTP simply add all the schedules the modders have created over the years to the game?

I believe this has already been done to some extent. Maybe a large extent. If you look in your ...Out of the Park ##\data\schedules folder you'll see 471 schedule files that begin with ILN or ILY. I know that some of these were created by user gmo (a prolific OOTP schedule-maker). I believe that many others were created by other users, though some may have been created by OOTP... Not only does OOTP use these files - if there's a match between OOTP league structure and the league structure specified in the schedule file - when it needs a schedule, but these schedules are also there for users to manually import into the game...

There are many more user-created schedules "out there" that *could* be included in that folder. I'm not sure what the process is, though, for making that happen. It might involve some QA testing...

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by thehef

I believe this has already been done to some extent. Maybe a large extent. If you look in your ...Out of the Park ##\data\schedules folder you'll see 471 schedule files that begin with ILN or ILY. I know that some of these were created by user gmo (a prolific OOTP schedule-maker). I believe that many others were created by other users, though some may have been created by OOTP... Not only does OOTP use these files - if there's a match between OOTP league structure and the league structure specified in the schedule file - when it needs a schedule, but these schedules are also there for users to manually import into the game...

There are many more user-created schedules "out there" that *could* be included in that folder. I'm not sure what the process is, though, for making that happen. It might involve some QA testing...

Yeah, I make use of the schedules that come with the game all the time. My current random debut is a 1 subleague setup, that I started in 1946 with 12 teams, no divisions. A few years after starting this league I split the 12 teams into 2 divisions. I'm now up to 1987 and have expanded the league to 18 teams with 2 9 team divisions. I've been able to use schedules from the OOTP files the entire time. Just wish there were even more options available.

I would love to expand further, but there aren't any schedules the come with the game that will allow for it. What sucks even more, is the simple solution would be to simply add a subleague. Not possible, because doing so will completely screw up the league history page. Ugh!

[texasmame]

Originally Posted by Sweed

If it were simple it would have been done a long time ago and not just for OOTP.

Baseball for Windows had one back in the mid 90s.

[cheo25]

Originally Posted by kq76

I wish everyone who ever asks for this would just try to make their own schedule, not alone a schedule generator. Unless they were an absolute genius, they'd probably very soon say to themselves, "yikes, this isn't easy!", or they have very low expectations / requirements.

I've made my own for years, and I've even contributed some to the forums over the years. While I can do it, it's almost never easy, always time-consuming and usually tedious. And even then, I never meet my own standards, and I find I violate some of the rules MLB has for modern schedules (limited repeaters, road trips or homestands no longer than 3 series, etc.). Making a schedule is like setting up a domino display, and if you have to move one series to fix a problem (even something as simple as flipping home and away for a series), you end up creating four other problems.

With the addition of odd-numbered divisions that require at least one interleague matchup for every set of MLB series, it's no wonder the league finally moved to creating schedules with a computer and away from the husband-and-wife team that made schedules for 25 years. So I can't imagine it would be a snap to create a schedule tool that would take various parameters of league size, games length and other constraints and spit out a reliably workable schedule.

[WhiskyTango]

With AI the magic is in the prompts.

The posts in this thread seem to be asking it to write a MLB schedule - meaning, for example, the actual MLB schedule for 2026. Obviously that isn't going to fly. No one playing OOTP requires an actual MLB schedule. Just think what it must involve - scheduling around stadium bookings, weather and flight connections, for example. Even other events in the city like major conventions, which might interfere with ideal draw potential, booking hotels etc. There must an enormous list of factors for each team and location to juggle. Then imagine how that is altered when a team relocates, or with expansion.

Otherwise, even writing a simple, non-RL schedule means you are basically asking it to write a software program to do it. Good luck.

Success may exist if you break the problem down into smaller iterations and then try to put them together. Get AI to work on small batch files, each one doing a small, simple task. It's good at that. Will require much more thought and experimentation though. For that reason could be much more interesting.