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 Panther's Global Flat Project 
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Post Panther's Global Flat Project
***WORK IN PROGRESS***

I’ve been creating schedules for Starters Orders games for around 15 years. Due to lockdown and the free time it’s given me, I’ve decided to work on a new, updated and expanded version of my global flat schedule. The current aim is to have this project fully tested and ready by the end of June. I plan to track my progress in this thread, with updates on testing and hopefully some screenshots to follow over the coming weeks.

BACKGROUND

This will be a global flat schedule with a UK base. The UK part of the schedule will be based on the 2019 turf season and the 2019/20 all-weather season. With my schedules, the emphasis is always on creating a racing world that is as accurate and realistic as the game will allow. I carry out extremely thorough testing on my schedules, which involves running multiple long simulations to ensure that everything still works as it should deep into the game, that field sizes and field quality are realistic, and that AI horse progression throughout the season in each nation is as realistic as possible. Classics and major international races are prepped to ensure strong fields. Other major races are prepped where appropriate, but my preference is to build a schedule that works as organically as possible, so preps are only used when necessary for certain races.

SCOPE

UK

For the UK schedule, I’m considering any race with prize money of £25,000 (£20,000 for 2yo races) or more to be a feature race, and where possible, these will all be in the schedule. This includes all group and listed races, all heritage handicaps, a large number of mid-value handicaps, some conditions races, and a small number of valuable maidens, thus creating a well-rounded, realistic schedule of feature races. By using strict guidelines for race inclusion, it also means that the balance of race distances included is in line with real-life BHA race planning and should result in a realistic balance of preferred distances for horses in training at the start of the game.

In my experience, expanding on the number of mid-value handicaps really enhances the handicapping scene (and racing world in general) within the game, and makes the build-up to the big heritage handicaps more interesting. It also gives more feature race opportunities for career handicappers, as well as horses using handicaps as a stepping-stone to group races.

In addition to these races, I’m also considering adding some real-life handicap series to the schedule (each with a small number of qualifying races). This could potentially include the London Mile/Middle Distance Series, the four categories of the Jockey Club Grassroots Series, and possibly some course-specific series like the Pontefract Stayers’ Championship. I like the idea of there being a small number of qualifying feature races scattered throughout the season for Class 3/4/5 horses, leading to valuable series finals (which would be prepped in order to assist the AI). If I include any of these, they would be spread evenly across all distances, in order to maintain balance.

Ireland & France

Ireland and France are the two closest racing nations to the UK, and as such, the aim is to have pretty thorough feature race schedules included. I’d like to have a similar number of feature races (and horses) from both countries in my schedule, therefore I’m likely to try to include all group races for France, and all group, listed and major handicap races for Ireland (this should balance things out, as France has more pattern races than Ireland).

Australia, Japan & USA

For the three major horse racing nations outside of Europe, the emphasis will be on the major international meetings and festivals, with an appropriate number of feature races continuing throughout the entire year to provide horses in those countries with regular racing opportunities across all relevant distances and surfaces, giving those horses a good level of background form going into the big events. Particular attention will be given to major international events, such as the Breeders’ Cup, Kentucky Derby, Melbourne Cup and Japan Cup, to ensure that fields for these races are as realistic as possible.

Hong Kong, UAE and other nations

All feature races from the shorter racing calendars in Hong Kong and Dubai should be included. Races from the other nations featured in the game will be included as well, but I’ve yet to decide to what extent.

DATES

Dates will largely follow the real-life 2019 racing calendar. However, with Easter falling very late in 2019, this affected some UK scheduling. Firstly, Newbury’s Greenham meeting fell the weekend before Newmarket’s Craven meeting (it’s usually the weekend after), and secondly, it meant that the All-Weather Championships at Lingfield were very late (several weeks into the turf season). For this reason, and because I prefer to create timeless schedules that are designed to be played over a large number of years, I have designated 7 April as Easter Sunday (this is the median Easter date) in my schedule, and have switched some races around to accommodate this, in order to reflect a more typical April in UK racing. Everything else remains exactly as it was in 2019, with calendar dates adjusted in the game so that every race and meeting falls on the correct date and the correct day of the week (where possible, as obviously there is still a limit of three meetings per day).

RACE NAMES / SPONSORS

I much prefer a feature race schedule without sponsors' names, where possible. My personal feeling on this is that a feature race schedule full of sponsors’ names is frozen in time; it’s fine if you only want to play a few seasons, but after 10, 20 or more seasons, it doesn’t feel right to have every race still with the same sponsor. For this reason, I choose to use only the official, registered names for races that have them; in the UK, this covers all group and listed races, as well as most of the major handicaps and conditions races included in the schedule. When it comes to some of the mid-value handicaps and other races that don’t have official names, I’ve decided to employ the system that most UK racecourses use to allocate placeholder names to unsponsored races, usually based on place names or landmarks that are situated close to the racecourse. This does mean a few unfamiliar names for some of the mid-value handicaps, but I do prefer it that way, and it also makes it easier to distinguish between them, rather than having dozens of races named after similar-sounding betting companies etc.


Mon May 18, 2020 2:22 pm
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
I'll keep this thread updated as regularly as I can. I hope to get some early testing of the UK part of the schedule carried out within a week or so.


Mon May 18, 2020 2:27 pm
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
panther wrote:
Everything else remains exactly as it was in 2019, with calendar dates adjusted in the game so that every race and meeting falls on the correct date and the correct day of the week.


There was a way to edit the alignment of days and dates in SO6 and earlier games, but unfortunately it no longer seems to be possible in SO7, and seems to be fixed to the 2022 calendar layout.

Obviously, for the sake of realism, the most important thing is that races are held on the correct day of the week (over five years, the Derby will be held on five different dates, but the one constant is that it will always be a Saturday), so I will work on transferring the real-life 2019 schedule across to the 2022 calendar, so that all of the races are still held on the correct days of the week. The one difference is that the 2022 calendar layout only leaves 1.5 weeks between Epsom and Royal Ascot (in 2019 it was 2.5 weeks), but it should be easy enough to make the necessary adjustments.


Tue May 19, 2020 9:18 pm
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
This sounds magnificent. Thoroughly looking forward to more detailed Ireland & France schedules that should add more realism and depth to the big UK races.

:D


Wed May 27, 2020 8:25 pm
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
Brigadier Gerard wrote:
This sounds magnificent. Thoroughly looking forward to more detailed Ireland & France schedules that should add more realism and depth to the big UK races.

:D


Thanks! The aim is to create an accurate and realistic global flat schedule from a UK perspective. The in-depth UK base schedule will run alongside very thorough French and Irish schedules, with the number of races available beyond Europe greatly expanded to give horses from those nations the opportunity to run against each other all year round, before taking on European challengers at the major international events like the Breeders' Cup, Melbourne Cup, Dubai World Cup night etc.

I've created similar schedules for previous versions of Starters Orders, but the one I'm now creating for SO7 has a lot more depth to it.


Thu May 28, 2020 9:04 am
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
Maybe you can take the great schedule of qwsa for a start point ?

It's really enjoyable, with a perfect repartition of runners in different countries.

However, the aim to add world race is what i expect since a long time :D

Good luck for the job.

(sorry for my poor english, french player ^^)


Thu May 28, 2020 10:24 am
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
Falbravv wrote:
Maybe you can take the great schedule of qwsa for a start point ?

It's really enjoyable, with a perfect repartition of runners in different countries.

However, the aim to add world race is what i expect since a long time :D

Good luck for the job.

(sorry for my poor english, french player ^^)


I'm sure qwsa's schedule is excellent, and I've seen good reviews in the forum, but I do always prefer my schedules to be entirely my own work.

In the many years that I've been creating schedules for Starters Orders games, I've accumulated a huge amount of real-life racing data for all of the nations included in the game. I keep it all on multiple spreadsheets, which I update regularly with the latest available race data. At the moment, I'm just concentrating on rewriting all of the race data files, before I start on the testing phase.


Thu May 28, 2020 10:47 am
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
It's an amazing job, and be sure i will help you to test it if you want.


Thu May 28, 2020 11:02 am
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
Thinking of getting SO7, haven't played the game since SO4 and after getting a new PC but not finding the registration codes to redownload the game.

I like the sound of this schedule you are creating and was wondering about the progress you have been making?


Sat Jun 27, 2020 9:39 am
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
bluealf wrote:
Thinking of getting SO7, haven't played the game since SO4 and after getting a new PC but not finding the registration codes to redownload the game.

I like the sound of this schedule you are creating and was wondering about the progress you have been making?


Hi, and thanks for your message.

I'm still working on this at the moment, spending some time on it pretty much every day. I think I stated in my original post that I had hoped to be completing it by around the end of June, but to be honest, that was always going to be a best case scenario. At the moment, I'm still carrying out testing for realism and stability on the UK part of the schedule (which is obviously by far the biggest part), and it's looking like it's going to end up being even more thorough than I'd originally planned, as it keeps growing! Once that's completed, I should just be able to plug in the data for the other nations (which I've already gathered) and carry out some final testing. I hope to be updating this thread more often when I get closer to completion.


Sat Jun 27, 2020 8:38 pm
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
Thanks for the reply, I bought the game anyway lol I am just plugging away refamiliarising myself with the game.

I think I will definitely be waiting for your schedule before attempting to add one to the game, this has never been a strong point in any of the other series, I am next to hopeless at shifting files about lol

Good luck with your build :D


Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:07 pm
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
Panther I hope all is well with you.

Only 108 days to Christmas and I'm super-excited.

How's the Global Flat Project getting along. The anticipation is getting unbearable :D


Tue Sep 08, 2020 5:42 pm
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Post Re: Panther's Global Flat Project
Hey Panther did you ever finish this?

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