woolymuffler

Yeah, there are several plays like that, on offense as well. The diagram and even the playname can be wrong, the details in the playbook show you what is actually programmed to happen (this is per Arlie, see here: http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=536929)

The line is slanting when you see that (R for Right, L for Left). This is a way to confuse blocking assignments and "cheat" to the side that you expect the play to go to (at least in real life, I don't know what impact it has in game).

Assuming you were looking at my thread, you don't actually have to change the dat extension. That odb file it creates is just a temp database; when you save, the changes are written to the original dat file (the attachment shows the odbc connection I created for working on my 2019 db)

<p>Well I'm really glad I decided to do one more trial with the default databases. It is not a problem with my DB, the base game does it. I must have been sloppy with my first test on the default databases and missed checking Season 5.</p><p> </p><p> I made literally no changes at all (even had the South Bend Leprechauns win the title one year) and sure enough, the 5th recruiting pool (4 seasons completed) had the issue with the West Region recruits.</p><p> </p><p> So use my DB all you want (I know I will) and just know it's a problem with the game. Maybe Arlie will see this; I'd be happy to send him a save game at Training Camp just before Season 5 starts.</p><p><a class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image" href="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2019_10/Season5WestRecruitIssueWithDefaultDB.JPG.3a744c4489c5307c5c0a50e963e764f7.JPG" data-fileid="3528" data-fileext="jpg" rel=""><img data-fileid="3528" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt="Season5WestRecruitIssueWithDefaultDB.thumb.JPG.282fea76899895fa531e25ed8c9358ed.JPG" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2022_08/Season5WestRecruitIssueWithDefaultDB.thumb.JPG.282fea76899895fa531e25ed8c9358ed.JPG" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /></a></p>

<p>So, I re-downloaded the databases and changed nothing at all other than the team names and mascots (didn't fix scheduling issues, didn't fix conference assignments, Idaho is still in the game) and the issue happened. I'll do one last test where the db has the "South Bend Leprechauns" (no changes at all) just to confirm that works (I thought I did confirm that but want to do it again just to be sure).</p><p> </p><p> I'm almost starting to think it's Open Office Base; I use that instead of actual Microsoft Access to edit the database as I don't own MS Access and it's possible it has a bug. I may be able to get a hold of MS Access at work and see if that makes any difference.</p>

I removed the new cities, set CCU to Columbia SC and Liberty to Roanoke VA and still got the issue. Thinking that maybe it happened every 5 years, I decided to continue in that save as long as I could last night just to see if the issue happened again. So far I've completed 11 seasons and just started the 12th, (so 12 classes of recruits created) and the issue hasn't repeated. Just baffled; I think I'm going to confirm one more time that the game provided databases do not do this and then start editing a known good database with my changes until I either get them all into a working db or find the change that is breaking recruiting.

Agreed, if we could get an updated version of this to reflect the changes in the game since 2006 (spread option, hurry up/no huddle, RPOs, etc.), I wouldn't need another game for years. Oh, and 85 scholarships, 120 total roster, signing days (early and normal), recruiting during the season, all the things. With modern computers, there is no reason not to have the full 85 total/25 per year plus walk-ons as in real life.

Yeah, that's the weird thing to me. Making a few changes to a db is in no way actual programming; I just don't understand how changing maybe 20 or 30 data rows could cause this sort of issue. But without knowing how the recruit list is generated, all I can do is try to roll back changes until it stops happening.

I'll do some tweaking on my copy and see if I can roll back whatever is causing the problem; either my db just corrupted in general or one of my changes doesn't agree with the recruit generation engine. It may not be until tomorrow that I can really do any more testing but I'll get to it as soon as I can.

Yeah, I had the same thought and went into "Monitor Recruits", filtered down to West region and then flipped through by position. No recruits at all for West -> SS. FS, P or K in Season 5 (and normal amounts in seasons 1-4). I tried to go into the save game and see if I could find them (thinking they had been created and maybe there was a bad delimiter or something that kept them from showing up in game), but I don't have the save format and couldn't tell from a hex editor.

I put a warning on my db update thread about this issue; if it was first reported in 2015 (two years before I created my db), it must be related to certain types of db changes rather than specific to my db. I'll confirm if my 2018 db does the same thing and probably create a new 2019 that doesn't include as many changes (not have the Sun Belt conference in divisions and not add Conway SC and Lynchburg VA to the cities list for Coastal Carolina and Liberty). I just recently noticed that Arlie didn't bother adding cities to his updated DB (for instance he has Appalachian State in Winston Salem as that is pretty near by) so maybe my updates to the city list somehow break recruiting over time. No idea really

Okay, it's my DB apparently After getting the original game dbs back from Steam (only two files were changed, pstats.dat and psetup.dat), I just made it to season 6 without the issue occurring. So I have no idea how my db causes the issue, but apparently it does (maybe from having 130 teams?). I have confirmed at least that my 2019 updated db causes the issue; I may try out my 2018 one and see if it does it. If the fix is as simple as dropping Liberty and Coastal Carolina (and their cities I added), I'm okay with that.

Known issue apparently It seems this issue was reported 4 years ago and nothing was done about it (as WBE94 has already discovered): http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2378754 That's disappointing; I guess I just had never noticed. I do wonder how online leagues are able to function with this bug? I'm still testing with the original db to see if the custom db is causing it but this seems like a game bug.

Well, it's reproducible, at least with my current custom db (hopefully attachment works). When the 5th recruiting class was being generated, no K, FS, SS or P recruits for the West. Unlike what OP reported, I have consistently seen ILB recruits in the West for Season 5. Now going to save off my customized db, verify my files to get original game db back and run another 5 season test. If it happens with the original game db, this is pretty much a show stopper bug. I have to believe it's something about my custom db causing it or it would have been reported before now...

I'm also running another test from a fresh save. One thing that did occur to me is that I had re-used an old save name that still existed and some of the files in the new save had old dates (created in 2017 so clearly leftover from by db testing). I don't think this caused the issue but want to rule it out. The only other thing that occurred to me was that the fourth year was the first time I had recruited special teams and I signed both a punter and kicker. Again, it seems really unlikely this caused it but just putting out theories. (P.S. Not sure if you saw, but I updated my db for 2019. Main change is that the Sun Belt is in divisions and has a Championship game).