Ballparks?

[GEP]

So, I've downloaded the demo and, in the spirt of trying to do way too much way too fast, I'm trying to create as faithful a reflection of the real world as I can. I've installed Prodigal Son's super-cool Real World Baseball mod, so I've got the minors, two of the foreign leagues (I'll probably add the others myself later on), and all of the feeder leagues.

Great so far. But what I'm still missing is the ballparks. Camden Yards as a retractable roof stadium? My beloved Twins playing outdoors on grass? I don't think so.

I see several threads on ballpark pictures, but I don't care about that. The graphics are the least interesting part of the sim to me (not that I don't appreciate Prodigal Son's logos and such). I'm looking for stadium names, park dimensions, and playing surfaces.

I could Wikipedia each league (major, minor, college, foreign, etc.) and copy what info I can find there, but that's a pretty daunting task for several hundred teams -- especially since OOTP's stadium selection menu is one of it's least user-friendly features. Not that I'm not insane enough to do it. But, is there a better way?

[1998 Yankees]

Below is a MLB stadium chart that I used last year. I got it here somewhere, I forget, but it's from 2005.

Better yet, go to www.ootpmodsquad.com and download the Gambo 2007 Stadium Chart. I just did so today and it's in the process of knocking my socks off. Unfortunately, all data must be entered in the game manually; I know of no automatic upload of stadium data if that's what you meant.

Note: You need Excel for these files.

Edit: I decided to remove the file that I originally posted here, as the ballpark factors in it were misleading IMO. See my note below.

[GEP]

Wow! Yeah. Socks knocked off. Obviously it would be nice not to have to type all that in (guess I know what I"ll be doing this weekend...), but it still beats trying to track down all the seating capacities and dimensions on the net and then trying to figure out how to get from them to field factors.

Fabulous resource. Thank you for directing my attention to it.

[1998 Yankees]

Great. This sort of stuff makes my day.

Now, to save you some time if you do become interested in ballpark pictures, go to the other popular mods web site for those. Here's the link to the specific page on that site:

http://web.mac.com/sixwilsons/iWeb/OOTPMods/Ballparks.html

There are tons of MLB and minor league ballpark images there. No foreign ballpark photos, unless they are in the mega-file called "Other Park Images" by Gambo (same fellow as the stadium data chart, BTW).

Edit: Actually, he does have some foreign ballpark photos in there. Quality varies, however.

[Tremaine]

I'm a noob as well, and loving the game. Years ago played the software version of Strat, but this is light years beyond that, of course.

My question about Ballparks is... I have Icys template and Gambos ballparks. What is the best way to "save" the ballpark info once I've entered it, so when I want to start a new league I won't have to reenter it all? As a Quick-Start?

Thanks for any help! Love the game!

[CatKnight]

Wow. All nine 'real' stadiums for my Canadian dynasty are here.

:GRIN:

EDIT: Oooh...and stadium modifiers that make sense. BM has this also, but their numbers were....painful to behold. For example Calgary's Foothills/Burns Stadium in their game would have about 152% homers over average. This chart lists it as 122.3% - a much more likely figure.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Tremaine

I'm a noob as well, and loving the game. Years ago played the software version of Strat, but this is light years beyond that, of course.

My question about Ballparks is... I have Icys template and Gambos ballparks. What is the best way to "save" the ballpark info once I've entered it, so when I want to start a new league I won't have to reenter it all? As a Quick-Start?

Thanks for any help! Love the game!

I have to say that I have not messed around too much with templates and quick-starts this year, as I just converted my 2006 leagues to 2007. But, I recently mentioned this elsewhere and was not shot down, so I will repreat it here.

Saving templates does not save edited ballpark info. Saving a game as a Quick-Start does, but the drawback is you are stuck with the same players, even if you saved it before the inaugural draft; the same players will appear each time you start the Quick-Start game.

There is one other alternative. Again, I have not done this in 2007 but I did it once last year. I was able to copy my edited parks.dat file, which can be found in your saved game folder (\My Documents\Sports Interactive\OOTP Baseball 2007\data\saved_games\Your Game.lg) to another location, then copy it back in a new saved game folder created with a fresh template, and it worked fine. No guarantees!

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by CatKnight

EDIT: Oooh...and stadium modifiers that make sense. BM has this also, but their numbers were....painful to behold. For example Calgary's Foothills/Burns Stadium in their game would have about 152% homers over average. This chart lists it as 122.3% - a much more likely figure.

Yes, I noticed that Gambo's ballpark factors appear much more reasonable for MLB stadiums than the ones listed in the file that I included above, which I never used for this purpose. For example, I could not see why that file has Comerica Park with a ballpark factor of 2.03 for triples; it just seemed unrealistic as the scale seemed to be way off from the defaults in OOTP. Gambo's numbers appear to be properly calculated and scaled (his Comerica 3B factor is 1.115), so I may use them myself now.

BTW, Gambo, if you happen to see this thread, thanks for all of this stuff.

[Tremaine]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

There is one other alternative. Again, I have not done this in 2007 but I did it once last year. I was able to copy my edited parks.dat file, which can be found in your saved game folder (\My Documents\Sports Interactive\OOTP Baseball 2007\data\saved_games\Your Game.lg) to another location, then copy it back in a new saved game folder created with a fresh template, and it worked fine.

Copying the parks.dat file from one league to the other worked perfectly. Whew! Glad I don't have to enter all that data each time!

Thanks so much 1998 Yanks! And thanks for taking so much time with all the noob postings. I see light at the end of the "learning curve". And thanks to Gambo for the parks!

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Tremaine

Copying the parks.dat file from one league to the other worked perfectly. Whew! Glad I don't have to enter all that data each time!

Thanks so much 1998 Yanks! And thanks for taking so much time with all the noob postings. I see light at the end of the "learning curve". And thanks to Gambo for the parks!

Well, thank you, Tremaine, for confirming it. Based on your experience, I am going to do this again this year!

[JimGalaxy]

Let me add my thanks. After playing a couple of game years, I resolved to make the stadiums accurate, and this is exactly the info I was looking for. Many, many thanks.

[canadiancreed]

Having a way to import this info (and of course export) for parks would be super to add!

[1998 Yankees]

Just a note - I took down that file from my first post in this thread, for the reason shown there. People should be using Gambo's ballpark file instead, IMO. Not only is all the basic data in his file anyway, but his ballpark factors look much more reasonable and scientific.

[JimGalaxy]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Just a note - I took down that file from my first post in this thread, for the reason shown there. People should be using Gambo's ballpark file instead, IMO. Not only is all the basic data in his file anyway, but his ballpark factors look much more reasonable and scientific.

Heh! The numbers are quite different. Thanks for the re-direction.

[1998 Yankees]

Yes, Gambo's file is quite amazing. Have you considered how much work went into making it? Then it's "Here folks, enjoy!" He and the other modders in this community have my admiration and thanks for their expertise and generosity. Alas, I lack their talents so that is all I can offer in return.