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Fun little addition. I have added 503 new cities with coordinates and populations for teams to use upon relocation and whatever. Every country attached to a continent (minus lame old Antarctica) should have at least one location available to use for a team. And then some small Islands like Fiji, Falkland Islands, Maldives, etc. A location needs at least 100k population for a team, so some locations were bumped up to that number if no cities in the country reached that minimum. A few cities (mainly Poland) had symbols that Excel didn't like, so I just replaced them with regular letters. List of locations added: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kXOBfs9E6dyTrffy1mHTAXbXyRUKieXS/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108287160030108477760&rtpof=true&sd=true Folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ei72Ue0HiLRC5tXTarlJowybm8DpZdJj?usp=share_link Directions: Download and copy "Hometowns" folder to the program file folder where the .exe is and overwrite. In my case, it's C:\Program Files (x86)\GDS\Fast Break Pro Basketball 3 End note: These new locations do not show up in already made save files. You have to start a new game in order to use them.

Sorry about the slow response, I was messing around with FBPB to see if I could make it save really slowly. Didn't work. Yes, you can change the save data location through a symbolic link on Windows. If you have another drive installed or just want to see if it helps I could help you do that if you'd like to try it.

Hmm a very unusual problem. It might seem like a stupid question, but are you actually turning off or restarting your computer at the end of the day instead of hibernate/sleep? Or maybe your hard drive is almost full? Though you mentioned it happening on 2 separate computers

I'd love to hear more about it. I've never done a multiplayer FBPB 3 league, though I've done plenty of FBB.

Interesting. Every long simulator has saves slow eventually, since more and more historical data has to be saved as it goes further in the game. But 3 minutes is obviously excessive and far beyond anything I've experienced. Is this happening even on a brand-new file?

And here's 1996: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kl6Hz1lBFcHWsoGAJUpct39ksSQwAH43/view?usp=sharing 144 total. Much, much, much stronger class this time around. Jordan, Payton, Sprewell, Stockton, O'Neal, Mutombo, Mourning, Miller, Smith, Hardaway, Anderson, Houston. Just insane really.

Ok here's the actual one: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ok8WzCTFpH_1BzSUBnl-IYPViNGEf1Gd/view?usp=sharing It's an Excel file, so copy to C:\Users\Public\Documents\GDS\Fast Break Pro Basketball 3\PlayerFiles and select it as the initial player source INSTEAD of the historical database. Still select historical database for the Yearly Player Source. Chris Webber headlines the class as the premier young player. Some other young talent include Howard Eisley, Tracy Murray, Voshon Lenard, Jon Barry, and Tom Gugliotta. Vets include Alvin Robertson, Terry Porter, Sean Elliott, Vernon Maxwell, and Dana Barros. It's also Magic Johnson's return year, so he's a very nice starting vet on the market. 134 total FAs.

Ok so I did 95, and will do 96 later. Weird issue is that the game generates low-level talent to fill the player pool. This hasn't happened before, even when I'm working on a new season and there's like 30 players total. And it generates A LOT of them. So, I added 200+ fake players named Fake Fake to the pool that are all 0 rating and 54 years old. A few get signed by the AI, but none seem to be played and I expect they'll retire at the end of the season. So it's still perfectly usable. EDIT: Actually, Realgm is a better source and so I will edit it and post it again in a bit. Felt like players were missing, bballref seems to be incomplete.

Unfortunately since the historical database doesn't have contract details the initial FA really isn't a thing. It wouldn't be too difficult to make a specific file for a specific year to start with, using the transaction list from bballref to get a list of FAs for that year. Is there a specific year you wanted? I'd be willing to do 1 or 2 for ya. I'm not sure how accurate it would be since the rosters sometimes seem to use end-of-season teams, and other times start-of-season. For example, in 1994, Bullets have both Chris Webber (who played the entire season for the Bullets but was acquired at the beginning of the season from the Warriors) and Tom Gugliotta (who played 6 games for the Bullets at the start before being traded to the Warriors for Webber, though Googs ultimately ended up in Minnesota).

Yes, I can see how it could be confusing if you click on the most recent link. Click the link in the first post and that will have a little instruction file. Only 2 of the 4 folders are necessary, which will be detailed in the file. If you can't find one of the save locations, you might have hidden folders invisible, in which case google how to show hidden folders. And then the most recent link will just be one file that's the most updated.

OK I lied. I have another update coming soon. Mainly, I wanted to look closer at how the more current rookies are progressing. Here are my notes: comparing 2016-2021 draftees to 2002-2006, there are significantly more yellow-overall players in the more recent classes. I expect this is because more players actually get playing time due to pace/resting players. When you compare 2022, 2005, and 2002, the number of players who played 1500+ and 1000+ minutes on the season are fairly close. However, when comparing the 600+ and 300+ minute cutoffs, the numbers drastically differ: 2022 600+: 358 players 300+: 426 players 2005 600+ 319 players 300+: 370 players 2002 600+: 299 players 300+: 340 players And so I believe that reflects better on 9th-12th slot guys that are yellow in recent drafts that may be orange or out-of-the-league in older classes. And then I feel the top of the drafts are a bit weak. When counting unique players with either an all-star or all-league designation (can be both), the older classes had an average of 3.5 all-stars and 1.75 all-league players per draft 5 years in to the draft, where most players should be nearing their prime. In comparison, the modern classes had an average of 2.1 all-stars and 1.3 all-leagues in those 5 years. After 10 years, the all-star numbers were a bit closer but the all-league was still a big difference. Old class was an average of 5.8 all-stars per draft and 4.4 all-leagues. Whereas the modern classes had an average of 4.9 all-stars and 3 all-leagues. This isn't a huge data sample, but it takes a while to sim and record so this at least gives something. So I'll revisit the drafts and adjust potentials around. And that'll be the next and only update before the FA one. Cool.

Updated again. All teams updated as well as 60-70 missed players (mostly vets who were not on Spotrac because they expired as UFAs). Next update will be start of FA (state of the file, not the date) with draftees included. That update will also be the first 2022 start date playable file (well, you could use this one, but there's no rookies). Same link as before: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U9G_l-PimeXd-nZD0Z9nCp1Xsjodmh_c/view?usp=sharing

Bit more teams. Now 21 completed, alphabetically ATL - PHI. Use previous link to download update.

Work-in-progress update. Still play 2021 at the latest, but the stats for 15 teams (mostly alphabetical order) have been input for this latest season and potentials changed around a bit for those teams. So anyone on those teams should hopefully be a bit more accurate even playing in earlier years than they were with the last update, especially any rookies on the 15 teams. Just put the historical.dat in the same spot as before. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U9G_l-PimeXd-nZD0Z9nCp1Xsjodmh_c/view?usp=sharing

This is a work in progress. It currently consists of the 2021 WNBA season with no career stats, and base potentials. Mainly, I wanted to see if I could get fairly accurate league-wide stats for WNBA, and I think I got close enough to show what I have as well as probably continue it later (NBA update has priority). I also simmed 20 years into the future and while overalls went up, the league-wide stats stayed roughly the same. I cannot emulate the playoff structure of the WNBA, so I left it at 8 teams, best of 1-5-5. Instead of a historical database, this will use excel outputs. When you start a new league selecting the WNBA league, on the second screen you will select the excel file as the initial player source. This is done because I edited the passing to be higher since the game's generation of the ratings made the passing very low. Because of this, I will likely just keep the same 12 teams across the entire league's history as well as the same amount of games as I won't have the game to assist with the volatility of WNBA structure. I will (assuming I work on it more) select a few seasons as starts, and the rest of the players will be supplied through draft classes. It will still have complete career stats for the starts. I didn't use any WNBA assets, instead just calling it the USWBL. While there is a height distribution file (which I did an educated guess on), there is not a weight distribution so all fictional women will be much heavier than they should be. I don't believe it affects simulations at all and can be fixed quickly by exporting, editing in excel, and importing the draft every season. If I work on the mod more, I'll probably post a quick guide. Probably takes me ~30 seconds each time to edit the weights, so it's fairly quick. This cannot be used at the same time as the men's files. Either backup everything, or redownload the men's versions I uploaded in the 2021 update directory (just now added anything that will be overwritten by the women's version). I think that covers everything. Cool! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15jcqrJj7IxeDXGhRJjhUWDo5bg0CdUix?usp=sharing

This is a work in progress. It currently consists of the 2021 WNBA season with no career stats, and base potentials. Mainly, I wanted to see if I could get fairly accurate league-wide stats for WNBA, and I think I got close enough to show what I have as well as probably continue it later (NBA update has priority). I also simmed 20 years into the future and while overalls went up, the league-wide stats stayed roughly the same. I cannot emulate the playoff structure of the WNBA, so I left it at 8 teams, best of 1-5-5. Instead of a historical database, this will use excel outputs. When you start a new league selecting the WNBA league, on the second screen you will select the excel file as the initial player source. This is done because I edited the passing to be higher since the game's generation of the ratings made the passing very low. Because of this, I will likely just keep the same 12 teams across the entire league's history as well as the same amount of games as I won't have the game to assist with the volatility of WNBA structure. I will (assuming I work on it more) select a few seasons as starts, and the rest of the players will be supplied through draft classes. It will still have complete career stats for the starts. I didn't use any WNBA assets, instead just calling it the USWBL. While there is a height distribution file (which I did an educated guess on), there is not a weight distribution so all fictional women will be much heavier than they should be. I don't believe it affects simulations at all and can be fixed quickly by exporting, editing in excel, and importing the draft every season. If I work on the mod more, I'll probably post a quick guide. Probably takes me ~30 seconds each time to edit the weights, so it's fairly quick. This cannot be used at the same time as the men's files. Either backup everything, or redownload the men's versions I uploaded in the 2021 update directory (just now added anything that will be overwritten by the women's version). I think that covers everything. Cool! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15jcqrJj7IxeDXGhRJjhUWDo5bg0CdUix?usp=sharing

I also wanted to post something I played with a little. Brought to my attention by xandelle on the fbbgames forum, the FBB.ini file allows for much more 3PT attempts among other things that I was struggling to reach before. So, in the same folder as the regular mod, I posted a new folder that includes a new yearlystats.csv and a FBB.ini for JUST 2021 and beyond so anyone can try it out. It brings down the jumpshot numbers as well as increases the 3PT attempt numbers. I didn't spend as much time on this one as I just wanted to mess with it for now, but it's fairly accurate-ish in terms of league-wide stats and efficiency. The FBB.ini file copies to the same location as the yearlystats.csv. With that, I also posted the original FBB.ini in the program files so you can jump back to it in case you copied the new one without backing the old one up. It does give me hope that I can revisit the WNBA mod I was trying to do earlier as I only slightly adjusted it before.

Sorry, meant to post this here instead of the actual mod thread. Just a copy paste. Alright, plan on updating this again. I plan on having 3 updates: #1) Add the 2021 stats and adjust some potentials accordingly. Will also add current 2022 player team status, but won't be used for a 2022 start yet, just to get more accurate ratings. Player placement will not be updated as I have tried to make every season be a pre/early-season roster. I also have around 30 or so missing players I never added that will be included. If you were wondering where NBA household names like Adam Mokoka and Juwan Morgan were, well they'll be there next time! #2) Pre-FA. #3) Preseason/early season. With the latter 2 having separate historical databases to allow for more accurate FA/preseason starts, though only the latter will be maintained for future updates if I update it again the season after. And then finally, I'll start including excel exports for these updates to get accurate ages as well as the historical database for the shuffle/low maintenance play with the older players. One solution I had in mind to counter this specifically for JUST the shuffle mode would be to move every player who's born after 2000 into an older draft to get accurate ages since nba debut year doesn't really matter for it. That's probably more work than I want to do though (maintaining a completely separate file again). I also may look into the historical modifiers for older seasons if I'm not sick of this by then. Don't know how accurate they are, but if they mostly are then I'd just leave it be. Lastly, I forgot I added a few non-NBA players in the earlier seasons before I ever did this update, so sorry if you were caught off guard by that. I only had 3. Oscar Schmidt (1984), Len Bias (1986), and Hank Gathers (1990). Feel free to edit them out if you feel like it.

Also if anyone is actually interested in the WNBA mod, I have input everyone for 2021 and simmed it a ton and I'm not sure it's ever seeing the light of day. I can get realistic stats in all but passing numbers pretty easily. If I lower the ERA, I can boost the passing numbers up but it needs to be too extreme to reach real-life numbers. Once it's set to that point, nearly every player in the league has 90+ defensive rebounding and stealing. The numbers sim right, but it just bothers me too much visually to be comfortable with it. My second solution would be to use the excel export and attribute distribution page to adjust everyone to where the overall ratings are closer (WNBA overall 71.4 avg, NBA overall 98.5 avg) and that would probably allow me to fix it. Problem with that 2nd solution is that the game seems to generate the strength of fictional draft classes based on the strength of the players in the historical database. If you have a really strong league file that you start with, but the players in the historical database have low ratings (as they do with the 2021 WNBA players), the generated draft classes will be way, way below the quality of the league files. EDIT: Actually, I'm not certain what's changing the quality of the fictional draft classes. I tried with no historical database as well as the men's while loading the WNBA league file, and the generated rookies (past the initial) weren't noticeably different talent-wise. I figured it was the database since I felt that it matched up really well with the 2021 women talent-wise, and when you do all fictional everyone is a lot more skilled. Hmm. And then third and last, I could just aim for in between in terms of passing numbers. Not at real-life numbers, but not as low as it is with a higher ERA like the NBA file. Which doesn't appeal to me much. So, it's interesting.

Oh yeah salary caps! Meant to do that, just forgot because I always customize it to a soft cap + hard cap. Also if anyone wants to get around the 2000 birth year thing, loading an unrandomized league and then using the current league editor you can export the league and draft files, and then change the birth year there (draft file change the age). While it won't load in the historical database, it will load from the player and draft files perfectly fine. If I ever want to update the game further as time goes on, I'll have to utilize that instead of the historical database. Probably just update the stats in the database, but only add new players through the excel exports. Unfortunately kinda screws over those (like me) who like to play the historical shuffle mode, but it at least allows further updates.

Alrighty so I posted the file in the mods section here: http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2515814#post2515814 I'll go through it some other time and make sure there are no duplicates or missing players, but it's pretty much in a finished state. The current 2021 draft is too deep, I'll go back and tone it down a bit some other time as well. Nothing game-breaking, just a lot of good role players. I figure it's good enough to release now though.

This updates the historical database up to 2021-22 NBA season (2021 start in-game). Google Drive Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XlLfBLWtUDXr436MLisW4rYydgkk_44H?usp=sharing

Going smoothly so far. I did email the developer to ask for an update to the historical database's restrictions in the 2000 birth year being the most recent allowed and to allow the yearly filter in the historical database to go past 2017. Fat chance since, you know, 8 year old game but you never know. Never heard back unfortunately. Also want to try my hand at a WNBA mod, but that would probably just be the 2021 season and fictional beyond. Very curious to see if it can sim it well. That won't be until after this is finished though. Focusing on 2021-22 teams as those take the most time. Figure after 2021 is done for every team, the rest will be fairly quick since adding new players will be limited to those who debuted 2016-2020 but are no longer in the league for 2021-22. Progress wise, did 2016-21 4 teams, 2016 and 2021 for PHX, 2016-2017 and 2021 for Detroit, and then 16 additional teams for 2021. No rookie ratings yet though. If I placed a percentage on the progress, I'd expect to be past 50% for the inputs. Then it's just double checking each season's players for mistakes or duplicates, and then simming each season and doing the historical modifiers. Feel like that will be pretty quick in comparison. Another thing I noticed with the game and its historical database is that it would assume Klay Thompson was trash his more recent years due to 2 years straight of 0 games (injuries). For now, I moved the career stats around to not have them consecutive which fixed that. I notice Joel Embiid is fine, so I figure having the later stats helps against that and he could be switched back with 2021-22 stats eventually.

For football, Front Office Football 8 and NFL Head Coach 09. Madden's pretty poor for simulation, and while it's nice to see Wolverine Studios try their hand at football, it's terrible. I think starting at 3 relevant ratings and that's it for QBs puts it dead in the water. Every good QB is gonna be the exact same. Not to mention their QB scrambling sim is worse than Madden. Football Mogul has a similar issue imo, and it's what helps makes Front Office Football much better than its peers. Head Coach is old and has issues, but has fantastic simulation and a meaningful coaching staff. Wish Head Coach was on PC for modding. Oh well. For basketball, I think I have the most fun with GDS's own Fast Break Pro Football Sim 3. Great simplicity while also giving a lot of customization and great simming. I particularly like how extremes exist with the 1-200 ratings, allowing a player like Stockton or Rodman to have an impact similar to real life. Wolverine Studio's DDSPB series is also quite good and I own them both, though I prefer the former. NBA 2K I don't really play anymore since maybe 2K17 or 2K18, just felt poor. Maybe I'll try 2K22 and see how it sims. I will say, no game has done coaching well imo. They all feel like afterthoughts for several reasons. Basketballgm is worth mentioning as a popular, free sim that I don't play. I really like WMMA 4 and 5 (or was it 3 and 5? I dunno) and have played both plenty. Never tried anything else in the MMA sim world if there is anything. I have wanted to get into Football Manager, but I haven't the slightest idea about anything Soccer. I hope to remedy this eventually since it seems like an excellent sim. I think that's all the experience I have with sports sims that are worth mentioning.

Alrighty, will be doing an update up to this season and will post it here for anyone to use if they want. It's pretty early on (5 teams complete, as in 2016-2020 and a blank 2021 added) but I imagine I'll finish it eventually. It will have pretty minimal overrides from me, relying on the game's rating generation. For rookies, I think I'll sim a NBA 2K season and use those stats to generate ratings for them. That is, if I finish before the season is far enough along to just use their real life stats. I'll also try to do the historical modifiers for each year, but that's to revisit after completion of the players. I did play with it a bit by copying the values that matched or were close to matching from years that had matching figures (for example, if the league avg in 2017 was a 46 FG%, and it also was in 2004, I'd copy the 2004 FG% value to 2016). Unfortunately, they don't seem to be independent of one another and instead I'll have to do the good ol' manual sim, compare, adjust method. Darn.