Attention: Third Party Player Editor?

[simmer]

Does anyone have the knowledge and time to create a fully functional player editor for his game. I was hoping that this editor would have the capability of being able to edit each players attributes or a global function. I would even pay the person to create this editor. [&o]

[garysorrell]

This would be fantastic, especially if you could load 1 teams roster at a time and edit all the player data on one screen.

Currently, I open the league file in Open Office, open 'Players' table, and sort by 'team id' then 'position id'

Its easy to edit from this point on, you just need to have a reference for things since David uses numbers in place of words and abbreviations, like a QB 'Position ID' is 0, RB is 3 and so on. Same thing for ratings...Speed is 1, strength is 2.

But I agree, would love a simpler process.

[Marauders]

It would be nice to see some of the Madden and FBPro tools modified for MaxFB.

With many of the files open, I would suspect it would be much easier than doing a Madden or FBPro tool.

[redwolf1]

I agree. This title needs to pick up 3rd party support to strengthen its community and attract more fans. I've been trying to do this through with my Madden "connections", best I've gotten so far is a nibble...

...Gotta get the game into potential utility makers hands, I say.

Marauders, did you pass on my idea (emailed) to David?

[David Winter]

I get ideas passed to me on (what seems like) an hourly basis [:D] so I'm not sure which specific one you asked him to send my way
 
Maybe just shoot me an email directly dave@wintervalley.com
 
thanks
David

[jdhalfrack]

ORIGINAL: Marauders

It would be nice to see some of the Madden and FBPro tools modified for MaxFB.

With many of the files open, I would suspect it would be much easier than doing a Madden or FBPro tool.

You are correct. It took me all of 4 or 5 minutes to make an editor that allowed me to change a player's name and last name. And it took about 4 lines of code. I'm not sure if you have ever made any tools for Madden, but to do the same on Madden took me about 20 lines of code and a seperate .dll file.

I know I do not have the game (yet [;)]), but I will work on an editor ASAP.

I have a few questions, however.

First, I know (or think rather) that all the data is stored in Access DB files which is fantastic. However, are there different tables for a league compared to like just a default roster set?

Second, since I don't own the game yet, where can I find what the values R1 - R20 mean?

Third, Redwolf let me download one of his league files, but can I get a few more to make comparisons to?

I'm sure as I start writing a program I will have more questions, but I will try to get working on this right away. It may take me just a bit to get into the full swing of things, though.

JD

[David Winter]

Hi.
 
I'm not sure if many are aware, but the game does actually have player editor. It's part of the utility package. Just open the utilities, select a league and team, then double click on any player in the roster. This will open a dialog that allows you to change pretty much all of the editable aspects of a player record.
 
As well, if you're working in a COM based language, you might want to try adding a reference to the Maximum-Football Database Engine (DBEngine.dll) in your project. It has very large number of classes and functions that may make things easier on you. This DLL is the container for all database functions and the core game itself does not talk directly to any database, it goes through this dll. So any database function the core game can make is also available to anyone else that wishes to hook into it.
 
If you're working in a .Net based language you can still reference the Database Engine, but you will need to be aware that the DBEngine.dll returns Collection objects in COM format (VBA). These are not directly compatbile with .Net Collections so you'll need to do a simple conversion (just add VBA has a .Net reference, load the collection into a VBA.Collection object, then loop through all the items and put them into a .Net Collection object).
 
Unfortunately, I have no SDK documentation for the DLL so you may need to learn the functions via the Object Browser. The VB6 source code for the utility package should be included as part of the installation so that should give you some quick guidance on using the DBEngine.
 
I hope that helps someone.
 
thanks
David

[David Winter]

First, I know (or think rather) that all the data is stored in Access DB files which is fantastic. However, are there different tables for a league compared to like just a default roster set?

 
Each league has its own roster contained within and a league generates players has needed. If you create a new league in the game, the roster is a blank table and new players are generated when you start a league season.

Second, since I don't own the game yet, where can I find what the values R1 - R20 mean?

 
These are the skills for the player. Only 1 to 16 are currently in use. 17 to 20 are future use and are not currently used in game for anything. I do not have the list of what field stores what skill off the top of my head and instead of givening incorrect information, I'll grab the list tonight and post it for you. If you have the core maindata.mdb file you can also get that information from one of the look up tables.
 
thanks
David
 

[simmer]

JD, First welcome to the site. I'm sure you wont be disapointed when you get the game. It is very enjoyable and competitive. In my opinion, and with a few third party addons, this game will surpass Madden with all its "secret squirrel" codes. When you make the editor, can you some how make a global function, so lets say I want to increase all teams RB's speed in a league by 5, every player listed as a RB will be increased, and so on. I first saw this when I used NZA's utility editor.

{Hopefully in a future game release}
A few weeks ago, I e-mailed David about a play situation editor request and received some very good feed back from him. In the future, either through David or a third party, I was thinking of a utility that has all play situations listed for the plays called in a single game by a user coach. If it was added into the game for future releases, the play would be highlighted or chosen by the computer.( Same as in Madden) For now, maybe an external editor could be made through a third party. The plays could be placed into the editor and used to call the plays for an entire game. I would think that this editor would be needed for people like me that cannot choose the right plays for the game. (My play calling is all over the place. I have to play CPU vs CPU and often see the computer choose the wrong play for a situation at crucial times. It would be nice to over ride this.

These are some future ideas for a programer[&o][8D][:D]

[Tbird]

Download my rosteredit file it tells what R1-R20 mean
there are some that are not in use so they are not labelled [8D]

tm.asp?m=1588788

I have them labeled on a text file but I'm on my way out and need to locate that text file.


For Position names you need the maindata.mdb file

[David Winter]

skills

[Tbird]

Yup that's it [:)]

[Arctic Blast]

Just out of curiosity, how exactly does the Pocket Passer rating work?

[jdhalfrack]

Just out of curiosity, how exactly does the Pocket Passer rating work?

I was wondering that myself. Another question is where can I post my current editing program for some people to test (note, it doesnt currently edit, just reads the data)? I need ot make sure that I am making this program correctly, and that all ACCESS files are setup the same.

JD

[David Winter]

This is explained in detail in the game manual, but basically it's the style of play of the QB. There is no 'good or bad' with this skill. It's just his style of play. A low pocket passer means he's more likely to run out of the pocket at slight pressure. A high pocket passer means he's likely to take more sacks because he doesn't move out of the pocket soon enough, but he's generally able to find an open receiver better.

[jdhalfrack]

Okay, so here's where I am at.
 
Currently, I had it so you can open a league database file and edit players.  You could globally edit attributes.  At that point, you could "temp" save it with all the updates.  When I tried to save it back to the database, however, it would do some funky stuff.  When I was searching for a solution, I found a much easier and less time consuming way of doing all the above.  So, I have started over with the coding [:(] (shouldn't take as long now, though, because I have all the basic structures there).
 
Granted, this would be a lot easier if I would just buy the game [;)] but I think it's coming along nicely. I hope to have it done by this weekend.  Hopefully that is not too long of a wait.
 
Btw, saving the league info in an ACCESS database file makes life so much easier.  So, thanks for making a game that does that! [:D]

[simmer]

Thank you sir....With ALL your hard work I'll definitley chip in with the others to buy you the game.[:'(][&o]