New RBI 3 hack in the works.... yes RBI3.

[fathedX]

I played several innings of the Rockies versus the Dodgers, everything seemed to work fine and I had fun.  Realistic home runs from Cargo (2) and Puig and way too many triples through the second base hole (I was swinging late) kept the score high.  Nice hack!

[brahmy]

Actually it was just batting average (lol). I was lazy and has those values handy. But if you look at the updated CSV file there is now the capability to insert any value based on any formula or criteria you want.

[BeefMaster]

My primary thought on the basis for error rate would be opponents' BABIP, although an advanced metric like UZR or DRS would probably work, too.  Those should be easy to find at the team level; shouldn't require much digging.

[Turd]

Why not just the total errors compared to the rest of the league? Simple, tells the right story. It's only 30 ratings, pretty easy to interpret.

[Turd]

I just know for a while I tried to get real cute with how I got my numbers. In the end, for a simple game, simple formulas actually work real well.

[brahmy]

@fathedX, missed your post before. Thanks for the feedback!

@Turd and @BeefMaster yes I hear you loud and clear But when I get the hours to plug away at this I'm focusing more on getting the editor working then polishing the roster (for now).

Excited about this RBI 2014 reboot... I think it will bring more attention to these hacked classic ROMs!

[brahmy]

Fully customizable RBI 3 editing is here!
http://www.rbi3.ca

What's new this time?

• The big one - you can upload the original RBI 3 plus a .csv file of your own batters, pitchers and team colours to the site, and it will spit out a modified game file special for you. (template .csv file available at http://www.rbi3.ca/create.html)
• The "base year" can now be changed via the .csv import process (in my ROM it's 13, but if someone wanted to start on a '14 RBI 3 there is nothing stopping them)
• More work done on back-end data validation (most of which still needs to be better incorporated into the website)

There are still plenty of known issues - some relating to the "base ROM" hacking that still needs to be done, and some related to functionality of the program and the website. This is still very much a work-in-progress - it's not quite ready for the masses. But I wanted to share it here because you guys give good feedback.

Cheers This was a fun milestone to reach.

[BeefMaster]

This is SPECTACULAR.

Question: I noticed this on the "error percentage" item:

"The percentage of time for a given team will fumble the ball, or miss a base while throwing."

Am I reading correctly that error rate actually is a factor in wild throws?  I don't know that that has ever been confirmed here before - nightwulf figured out the mechanics of the errors when fielding, but I don't know whether anyone actually double-checked whether that value was consulted on a throw.  My assumption had always been that it was independent of the error rate and just completely random somehow, either due to a built-in value or a glitch in the throwing mechanics.

As an aside, I don't know that I like the conversion of error rate to a percentage system.  It looks like it's the only value you're converting in that manner, so it's not consistent with the other items that are using raw values from the ROM, and the conversion actually makes it more difficult to provide granular differences between teams - if I want Team A to have a 3 error rate and Team B to have 4 (Team A is just SLIGHTLY worse in the field), then I have to do the math to figure out exactly how much of a difference there is and throw that ugly percentage into the editor.  I think keeping everything in integer values makes more sense here.

One other minor detail - is there a reason that you list 0-55 as the valid values for HR?  There's a guy with 70 on the Tengen Team in the original version of RBI 3.  Are they not using a full byte for that data and jumping to a lookup table, like with ERA?

[fathedX]

Yeah, this is big news.  Good work, sir!

I'd love to get this playing on my NES but I haven't yet bought a Powerpak yet.  I'm quite concerned since Tempo said his Powerpak stopped working.  That's $135 that could go to beer

[Gantry]

Get a $15 USB joystick and use an emulator on your PC - close enough and way cheaper.

[fathedX]

I have that and did that, thank you very much.

[Gantry]

The invoice will be in the mail shortly

[Turd]

He has a 5 year free replacement warranty on the powerpak. You could check into that. I have one and it works fine.

[brahmy]

Question: I noticed this on the "error percentage" item:

"The percentage of time for a given team will fumble the ball, or miss a base while throwing."

Am I reading correctly that error rate actually is a factor in wild throws?  I don't know that that has ever been confirmed here before - nightwulf figured out the mechanics of the errors when fielding, but I don't know whether anyone actually double-checked whether that value was consulted on a throw.  My assumption had always been that it was independent of the error rate and just completely random somehow, either due to a built-in value or a glitch in the throwing mechanics.

I can confirm that I was wrong here. I just tested by creating two teams with 100% error percentages, they miss every catch but their throwing to bases seems to be unaffected. I don't understand why the ball sometimes completely misses the base!

As an aside, I don't know that I like the conversion of error rate to a percentage system.  It looks like it's the only value you're converting in that manner, so it's not consistent with the other items that are using raw values from the ROM, and the conversion actually makes it more difficult to provide granular differences between teams - if I want Team A to have a 3 error rate and Team B to have 4 (Team A is just SLIGHTLY worse in the field), then I have to do the math to figure out exactly how much of a difference there is and throw that ugly percentage into the editor.  I think keeping everything in integer values makes more sense here.

I hear what you're saying here... so I put a lazy man's fix in. I like thinking about the error% as a percentage, because 5.9 out of 100 is a lot easier to mentally visualize than 15 out of 255.

The backend logic does the rounding anyway (even if you didn't have a multiple of .39 or whatever) so I just took out the confusing references to multiples of .39. Basically nothing changes except clarity. And if people want to guarantee themselves those granular changes in error% then they can start thinking in multiples of .39

One other minor detail - is there a reason that you list 0-55 as the valid values for HR?  There's a guy with 70 on the Tengen Team in the original version of RBI 3.  Are they not using a full byte for that data and jumping to a lookup table, like with ERA?

I make so many faulty assumptions, haha. I just made a test ROM (using the website, which is now much much faster than generating test ROMs in my Python environment!) with guys with 53, 54, 55, 56, 57 home runs... then 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 101 HRs. It works up to 99 so that's the new limit.

Thanks for the feedback guys, it's much appreciated!

[brahmy]

Added a new feature where you can upload a copy of an RBI 3 ROM and it spits out a .csv file for your editing pleasure.

So if you find an RBI 3 ROM (made with our tool) that you like, you can pull it apart and improve it!

[BravesPaul]

Late to the party, but I found the online RBI3 modifier earlier this month, and I've been playing with it ever since. As a math geek, the first thing I did was create basic formulas to generate power/speed/contact numbers per plate appearance, which means brief playing time doesn't hurt a player's power or speed. Once the formulas were set, all I had to do was type in plate appearances, batting average, home runs, and steals for each player, along with name, position, batting stance, and it automatically spits numbers into a spreadsheet, which I copy over to the CSV for uploading.

I made improvements to the 2013 CSV already available for my purposes, and I think you might want to test it out.  I corrected some players incorrect batting stances -- I verified them ALL and even looked to see how switch hitters performed from each side of the plate to choose which would be their default.  I also checked Baseball Reference for batting orders to set them as close to the real 2013 lineups as possible.

ALL TIME TEAMS:  So of course the next thing I did was build an entire roster for all 30 teams of their best hitters ever.  I used their entire careers with the team instead of individual seasons, and the average numbers created realistic values for good gameplay, although high scoring.  I also had to make tough choices for players that played for multiple teams, but my goal was 420 different hitters, so I made those choices.  For example, McGwire went to the Oakland although his best years were in St. Louis.

HIGH POWER GLITCH:  I am testing a "best seasons ever" version, but players with like 2001 Bonds cause a funny glitch on high popups.  The ball sometimes goes so high that the high-pitch squeal peaks, then dips into a very low-pitch bassy growl like a weak fly ball, before coming back down through the squealing raneg.  Also, 520-ft home runs are fine, but a 535-ft home run showed glitchy graphics during the home run fireworks.  (Screen scrolled too far!)

I have NOT touched pitching yet.  The first thing I want to do is adjust stamina with a basic formula based on innings per start, or something like that.  48 should be a minimum, not the standard.  I'll be toying with this in early April if live baseball on TV doesn't distract too much, and hopefully I'll come back with more...

[Gantry]

Holy crap, that's a first post!  Nice work BravesPaul, and welcome!

Did you run into any player with royally inflated #s because of a tiny # of plate appearances (like less than 15) gave them super-human stats?

[BeefMaster]

This is some terrific work, here.

[brahmy]

@BravesPaul - I'm glad to see someone using the site! The 2013 CSV file was really just a template - I am glad to see you mixing up lineups (that was the whole point of the project ). Feel free to post your .csv files or .nes files on this site, I am sure there'd be some people who'd test them out and give you feedback.

Regarding high power, did you see our gamefile help page? We found that if you give a player a power rating higher than about 1100, it starts breaking down the game mechanics. You may want to scale your equations between a certain range (650 and 1100 or something).

Sadly once we got the editor up to its current state we haven't been able to sink any more time into it. Once feature I'd like to add is a basic "text editor" interface where you can put the hex offset of a text string in the .csv file, along with some new text. This would allow users to change the text on the homescreen, credits screen, etc.

[VEGAS]

This sounds incredible. Its great to have new folks involved in crafting new/updated and creative ROMs. Please post any ROMs you make to this thread (or start a new thread) and I know there's plenty of dee-nee folks who are have to test them out and offer feedback (if that's desired).

Late to the party, but I found the online RBI3 modifier earlier this month, and I've been playing with it ever since. As a math geek, the first thing I did was create basic formulas to generate power/speed/contact numbers per plate appearance, which means brief playing time doesn't hurt a player's power or speed. Once the formulas were set, all I had to do was type in plate appearances, batting average, home runs, and steals for each player, along with name, position, batting stance, and it automatically spits numbers into a spreadsheet, which I copy over to the CSV for uploading.

I made improvements to the 2013 CSV already available for my purposes, and I think you might want to test it out.  I corrected some players incorrect batting stances -- I verified them ALL and even looked to see how switch hitters performed from each side of the plate to choose which would be their default.  I also checked Baseball Reference for batting orders to set them as close to the real 2013 lineups as possible.

ALL TIME TEAMS:  So of course the next thing I did was build an entire roster for all 30 teams of their best hitters ever.  I used their entire careers with the team instead of individual seasons, and the average numbers created realistic values for good gameplay, although high scoring.  I also had to make tough choices for players that played for multiple teams, but my goal was 420 different hitters, so I made those choices.  For example, McGwire went to the Oakland although his best years were in St. Louis.

HIGH POWER GLITCH:  I am testing a "best seasons ever" version, but players with like 2001 Bonds cause a funny glitch on high popups.  The ball sometimes goes so high that the high-pitch squeal peaks, then dips into a very low-pitch bassy growl like a weak fly ball, before coming back down through the squealing raneg.  Also, 520-ft home runs are fine, but a 535-ft home run showed glitchy graphics during the home run fireworks.  (Screen scrolled too far!)

I have NOT touched pitching yet.  The first thing I want to do is adjust stamina with a basic formula based on innings per start, or something like that.  48 should be a minimum, not the standard.  I'll be toying with this in early April if live baseball on TV doesn't distract too much, and hopefully I'll come back with more...