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 How Long Do You Test Your Schedules? 
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Handicapper

Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 7:30 am
Posts: 210
Post How Long Do You Test Your Schedules?
So I've finally got a beta schedule together and I'm testing it to make sure it's working and that I don't feel like it's missing anything. I haven't even got through one season before spotting some mistakes that had to be fixed, so I'm currently going through and one-by-one making sure every race has the right surface type and name (I messed those up on some).

I eventually want to start a new game (or possibly continue whichever game I use for testing and find nothing wrong with) and bring in my stable full of superstars (about 100 horses). But I'm super nervous about losing them, so I don't want to do it until I'm 110% sure it's okay. I know about the TTF method and I am going to back them up while they're in the game pool (Not a league player and never intend to be). I've just never created my own mod for a game and I tend to make silly little mistakes on really detailed stuff like this, so I just can't believe I'm going to get it right finally :lol:

So how long do you more experienced schedule makers test your game for? I only auto-ran one season for this testing game but I did do one with a 5 year autorun to make sure all the history generated. Strangely, it loaded up the formbook fine for the races without names and the wrong surface type but crashed if I tried to use it. What kind of things other than obviously wrong race information should I be looking out for?


Sun Jul 14, 2019 5:44 am
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Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 7:47 am
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Location: London
Post Re: How Long Do You Test Your Schedules?
For me, once the data gathering and data input stages are complete, the testing phase end up being by far the longest stage of schedule creation. Once everything is together, I make a series of five-year auto-runs, followed by manually simming through a sixth and sometimes seventh season, checking everything for each of the races. The things I'm looking for include: appropriate field sizes, appropriate quality of horse in each race, realistic horse progression through the year (do preps need to be removed, added or adjusted), and the right balance of overseas horses in races (this part is tricky, as I have certain overseas races that should be restricted to horses from that country, overseas races that should have an international field, UK races that should be UK-only and UK races that should in international, and where relevant it should be horses from certain countries that are more likely to be in these races). After each five/six/seven-year test, I make further tweaks and adjustments to data files, then do it all over again. Once I'm finally satisfied, I carry out a couple of longer tests (10/15 years), and check through the historic results for each race to make sure everything continues to hold up deeper into the game. After this, I might make a couple of very small last-minute tweaks, followed by one very long test (30+ years). Assuming all ok with that, I'm ready to go!

Taking into account the limited free time I have available for this, testing usually takes at least a few weeks/months, and I usually make it last the duration of the beta phase, so that I know it's pretty much perfect by time of full game release, and I'm ready to start playing. It should also be noted that some of the things I'm looking for during the testing phase can be affected (either negatively of positively) by patches, so you need to know whether to make the necessary changes or assume that any issues will be resolved with further patches. This is why I usually wait until after beta before making a proper start on actually playing the game!


Sun Jul 14, 2019 8:51 am
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Handicapper

Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 7:30 am
Posts: 210
Post Re: How Long Do You Test Your Schedules?
Wow thank you for such a thorough answer. I didn’t even really think of those things. I haven’t even put prep races in to be honest - I’m not sure what the natural progression for some races would be and it’s a lot of research. I have been noticing the overseas thing in some of them since I added more secondary nationalities but I also put the percentage of foreign horses down to 15%, so it’s not getting overwhelmed. I have noticed some of the Group and Listed races are a bit empty but I think that’s normal for a first season.

I’ll keep those time frames on the season in mind. I think I’m realising that this stage is going to be a bit more extended than I thought. I miss my main game but I don’t want them to age up, so I’ll have to just keep going with the schedule :lol:

I’ve just thought, I should make a blog of my experience and maybe even my gameplay… I’m an Internet Communications student and they’re strongly encouraging we start some sort of online presence. I’m lucky that I’m studying online at the moment, so I’ve had time to take this on.

One of the only things that is sticking out to me is that if I don’t have a full day of feature races, there’s no default races generating, especially on the international tracks. Might have to go back to the drawing board and add some sort of "feature handicaps" on those days. And maybe a few feature novice races for 2yos who win their maiden so they have a race at all to enter between Aug-Dec.

When you say check every race, do you actually watch every race or just the form card?


Sun Jul 14, 2019 1:03 pm
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Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 7:47 am
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Post Re: How Long Do You Test Your Schedules?
twilightramblings wrote:
One of the only things that is sticking out to me is that if I don’t have a full day of feature races, there’s no default races generating, especially on the international tracks. Might have to go back to the drawing board and add some sort of "feature handicaps" on those days. And maybe a few feature novice races for 2yos who win their maiden so they have a race at all to enter between Aug-Dec.


Yeah, the game doesn't generate a full day of races at international tracks, unless you make them all yourself as feature races. It will sometimes generate one or two random races though, usually if there are only one or two feature races.

twilightramblings wrote:
When you say check every race, do you actually watch every race or just the form card?


When I'm testing, I'm just analysing cards and results, so I don't need to watch the races.


Sun Jul 14, 2019 10:23 pm
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Handicapper

Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 7:30 am
Posts: 210
Post Re: How Long Do You Test Your Schedules?
Sorry I didn't reply to say thank you for answering this so thoroughly before, but this was a great help. Even just the reassurance that I got from realising that even for experienced modders, schedules can take a long time to bring together. I've been fighting with my new version of the schedule I was working on and every time it crashes the game, a part of my soul dies a little :lol: The testing stage is actually going to be the fun part, since I get to actually play while doing it.

At least now, I have all the races in a spreadsheet, so I can fill out the info you mentioned, like whether the field size and preps are right.


Thu Oct 03, 2019 6:58 am
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Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 7:47 am
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Location: London
Post Re: How Long Do You Test Your Schedules?
twilightramblings wrote:
Sorry I didn't reply to say thank you for answering this so thoroughly before, but this was a great help. Even just the reassurance that I got from realising that even for experienced modders, schedules can take a long time to bring together. I've been fighting with my new version of the schedule I was working on and every time it crashes the game, a part of my soul dies a little :lol: The testing stage is actually going to be the fun part, since I get to actually play while doing it.

At least now, I have all the races in a spreadsheet, so I can fill out the info you mentioned, like whether the field size and preps are right.


Hey, sorry it's taken me over six months to reply to this! Until recently, it had been a few months since I last visited the forum or played the game. Decided to have a look through some of the older threads this evening and came across this. Hope the schedule you were working on turned out well? I abandoned my previous attempt at an updated SO7 schedule last year, as I was too busy with other things, but I'm now back on it as I have a lot of free time during lockdown. It's turned into my lockdown project!


Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:09 pm
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