The quest for the pitcher HR ... and more

[nightwulf]

So I dicked around with a ROM a bit to try and flush out a pitcher homerun. The result is attached. Note that the only two teams I changed are California and Boston, because I'm much too lazy to go through all ten teams. Here's what's going on:

- All batters have the exact stats that a batting pitcher would have.

- All pitchers are bottomed out. That is, they have zero stamina, and their speed stats have been lowered to what they'd be if they'd been bottomed out over the course of a game.

- During pitch generation, a random number (0-255) is generated once. This number basically is either a small bonus or small penalty to the speed of the pitch. Instead of a random number, in this ROM it's always zero, making every pitch as slow as it can possibly be within the normal game engine.

- A random number is generated at least two times for every successful hit, and sometimes as many as four are generated. For three of them, I've not yet narrowed down exactly what they do. In this ROM, they return 255 every time.

- The one number I was able to figure out is a bit of a problem. The number must be from 0-61 (if a larger number is generated, it's thrown out and the process repeats until a 0-61 is returned). This number is the maximum height of the ball's path, or to be more precise, it's the apogee of the arc the ball travels. So what should this be for a ball to be most likely to leave the park? Setting it to zero produced all grounders, as expected. Setting it to 61 made every ball go ridiculously high in the air, and land usually somewhere near the end of the infield.

So, all you physics fans out there, figure out what to set that last number to to make homeruns as likely as possible. At the moment, it's set to 48, which made almost every ball leave the park when all the batters have their original stats. This number is located at offset 0xFE04 in the ROM (default 0x30) if you'd like to tinker with it.

In fact, if you'd like to tinker with all of it, here's where to look ...

0xFE01 (default 0x00): pitch speed penalty/bonus
0xFE04 (default 0x30): apogee of arc of hit ball
0xFE07 (default 0xFF): used in every successful hit
0xFE0A (default 0xFF): used in some hits
0xFE0D (default 0xFF): used in some hits

Play around with the last four; maybe someone can come up with something better. I'd like to stress that no changes to the batting or pitching engine were made at all. Anything done by players in this ROM can be done in the original ROM as well (well, if all the batters bat like pitchers, heh). The main difference is, instead of random numbers being generated and used at different times in the process, we're forcing them to be a number of our choosing.

So I finished making changes and started playing with the ROM. No "pitcher homerun" yet, but I did notice something new. I've not had a lot of sleep as I write this, and I could very well look at it another time and decide that this isn't true at all, but here's what I noticed. The number three and four batters in the lineup always seemed to have a bit more .. oomph, in lack of a better word. Balls hit from those batters went a little farther and seemed to have a little more power.

Could it be that batters are given bonuses or penalties to their abilities solely on where they bat in the lineup? Ugh. Play around with this ROM and see if you notice the same thing. If you play with this ROM, please post your observations as well. If this is true, I've got something else to figure out ...

Edit: removed pinch hitter first AB bonus from the ROM

Nightwulf

[Nails]

Nightwulf, I just watched a game with this ROM, and saw two hitters (Burleson and Armas) hit one off the wall.  I uploaded your ROM to the editor, and there's still a PH bonus of 64.

[Stock]

The number three and four batters in the lineup always seemed to have a bit more .. oomph, in lack of a better word. Balls hit from those batters went a little farther and seemed to have a little more power.

Could it be that batters are given bonuses or penalties to their abilities solely on where they bat in the lineup?

Are you F'ing serious.  I am too computer code stupid, but please let me know on these developments.  You might be able to maximize your line-up (ie fantasy league) by batting your worst hitters in the 3-4 hole.  Good shit... you may have stumbled on an RBI breakthru.........still does not explain why Walling blows ass though.  Maybe you also get a power penalty for being on the shitty Stros

[Gantry]

Good stuff nightwulf...  I don't have much time to look at tonight, but if there is no progress in the next 24 then I'll do some digging.  Have a game playing on the other monitor and still no pitcher dinger.  But everyball has been airborne so far...

It doesn't help that the cpu swings late at 80% of the pitches, which most likely incurs a penalty in terms of power/distance..

[nightwulf]

Sorry. I removed the ROM from the original post and replaced it with one that removes the pinch hitter bonus.

Every ball is airborne because it has to be. )

Nightwulf

[Stock]

It doesn't help that the cpu swings late at 80% of the pitches, which most likely incurs a penalty in terms of power/distance..

I assume nightwulf gave every batter a contact factor of "0".  Doesn't this mean that every swing will get the most power?

[ultimate7]

I'm sure he set the contact to whatever the pitchers default contact is (38?)

[ultimate7]

Actually the Random number thing is an incredible breakthru, this means that you could have a perfect swing on a pitch and still hit a ground ball depending on the random number.  Nice work once again Nightwulf.

[Gerlost]

I played the rom as Houston vs. Detroit.  Nolan Ryan was throwing 95 mph pitches and the Detroit batters were hitting them into the stands left and right.

I guess it's different if the computer plays itself?

[BeeJay]

Note that the only two teams I changed are California and Boston

[Gerlost]

HEY I CAN'T READ

[JoeDirt]

I don't have much time to look at tonight, but if there is no progress in the next 24 then I'll do some digging.

Gantry--24 is on tonight and it's always action-packed with progress, so you can safely put your shovel away.

[Gantry]

Better yet, the Illini were on tonight and that game took alot out of me.  That and the 16oz of pasta I ate right before the game.  Finished off the bag this time and I'm still incredibly full...

[ultimate7]

- The one number I was able to figure out is a bit of a problem. The number must be from 0-61 (if a larger number is generated, it's thrown out and the process repeats until a 0-61 is returned). This number is the maximum height of the ball's path, or to be more precise, it's the apogee of the arc the ball travels. So what should this be for a ball to be most likely to leave the park? Setting it to zero produced all grounders, as expected. Setting it to 61 made every ball go ridiculously high in the air, and land usually somewhere near the end of the infield.

So, all you physics fans out there, figure out what to set that last number to to make homeruns as likely as possible. At the moment, it's set to 48, which made almost every ball leave the park when all the batters have their original stats. This number is located at offset 0xFE04 in the ROM (default 0x30) if you'd like to tinker with it.

Bumping for trajectory/height discussion, certainly some randomess in whether Ground ball or fly ball

[ultimate7]

I'm suprised no one has comment on this, it seems fairly different from the way we all believed it was.