How to do your Training Camp

Nuts and Bolts of FBPro95 Training Camps

Once every season, every FBPRO team goes to TC (training camp). The restrictions forced by the game programmers are as follows:

each position group trains separately. i.e QB, RB, Rec, OL, DL. ect

ALL players in a position group MUST train the same way, i.e. all OL: T, C, G will have the same TC assignments.
Individual TC's are nt allowed.

each position has 100% to be allocated between the 8 skills.

TC allocations are made in increments of 5%. There are 20 5% increments

Training Camp Theory

General Info:

FBpro programming has TC's funtion as follows. The game uses the following formula to determine TC results:

((max pot.)-(current))*TC% + (current)

example: a player has a current skill of 75, max potential of 99, TC% of 50% for the skill.

((99-75)*.50)+75 =(24*.50)+75 = 12+75 = 87

Using this formula can give an very good approximation of a TC result.

Several Caveats:

If the current skill is less than half max potential, FBpro ignores the max potential and replaces the part of the statement :
(max pot. - current) * TC% with
(current) * TC%
5% TC assignment is considered a 'maintenance level' TC. Basically, 5% will generate no change (0% TC will generate a 33% DROP in the current skill). With 1 exception, if (MAX POT) - (CURRENT) = 21+, the the skill will go up EXACTLY 1 point.
the formula is correct for R)ookie and year 1 players. Starting with year 2 players there appears to be 5-8%/season (over 1) decrease in the improvement according to the formula.
This means that a year 6 player will train 25-35% worse than the formula would indicate based on current and max potentials.
In approximatly 20% of players, the actual improvement may be + or - 1 to 3 points based on a 50% TC assignment.
In approximatly 1-2% of all young players, there is an unusual 'syndrome'. In this syndrome, in a given season, the player will have 1 or 2 skills that will train very poorly, as much as 50% below the indicated improvement. Often there will another skill that will train up to 25% better than expected., Addittionally, the following season, the 'depressed' skill will often train upto 25% better than the formula indicates.
It is strongly recommended that you 'sim' several training camps to fine tune your TC assignments

Steps to Run a Simulated Training Camp

1] go to your FBPro95 directory

2] save a copy of the IFL files.

pkzip TEST  ifl.*

This creates a file, TEST.ZIP with all the IFL files in it. this allows you to run multiple TC's to examine the reults of various TC assignments
** note, the IFL files must be from after the draft is complete, so that the RUN TRAINING CAMP button is available.

3] type

del print.out

4] invoke fbpro in the 'capture to print file mode'

HIKE -F

5] at the first screen, hit the LEAGUE PLAY button (upper right hand button)

6] from the League Play screen, hit the TEAMS & STANDINGs button (upper left)

7] from the league and standings screen, click on your team's name. This brings up the 'team menu'.

8] the bottom most button on the Team Menu will be TRaining Camp, click that one

9] this takes you into the Training camp Screens. For each position, it will display the 8 skills. You click on the arrows (up and down) to increase or decrease the TC assignments for each skill at each position.

10] when you have assigned all 20 5% increments totaling 100% assignments, move on to the next position.

11] when all TC assignments have been made, click on the RETURN button twice.

12] now click on the ROSTER button (upper right) on the TEAM MENU

13] click on the PRINT button (lower right) to save to the PRINT.OUT file a copy of your pre TC roster.

14] click on the RETURN button 3 times, this will take you back to the LEAGUE PLAY screen. There will be a RUN TRAINING CAMP button on the right hand of the screen.

15] Click on the RUN TRAINING CAMP button. when it tells you that all the other teams do not have completed TC plans, click on the HAVE COMPUTER MANAGE button.

16] when the TC is complete (the running man icon disappears) go back to your roster and click on the PRINT button. This saves the roster AFTER the TC to the PRINT.OUT file

17] hit the key, and then to the EXIT TO DOS prompt.

18] Type

EDIT PRINT.OUT

to look at the print.out file to compare the TC results

19] to run another TC, type :

PKUNZIP TEST

20] repeat steps 4-19 to run repetitive TC's

Theories of Training Camps

There are several prevailing theories of running TC's. Overall they can be broken up into 2 general concepts that I call the BALANCED theory and the CONCENTRATED theories of TC.

Before I get into the theories, let me say that it is a VERY good idea to have a strong idea of your TC plans over the next 2-4 seasons. Knowing how you are likely to train can help you decide which players to draft or trade for.

i.e. A player may be available, but if the player's TC needs do not fit in with the your TC plans ( as dicatated by the needs of the other players on your team at that position) then it may not be a good idea to acquire the player.

Concentrated Training Camps

First off, you MUST assign 5% to each of the 8 skills, that allows 60% of discretionary assignments.

the most concentrated TC is called the '65%' TC, i.e. 7 skills each get 5% and the 1 other skill gets the remaining 65%.
Other common assingments are:
50% (50% , 20%, and the other 6 skills get 5%)
60% (60%, 10%, and the other 6 skills get 5%)

The reasoning behind a 'concentrated' TC is that a 65% TC assignment will generate the maximum possible improvement in a single skill. The disadvantage is that it may take 3-5 seasons before a young player is ready to assume a starting spot and be a star play, as they may have some real holes in their skills.

A young player utilizing 'concentrated TC's' may well look like:

92-65-70-35-85-50-40-35, with a strong skill or 2, but everything else very weak

On the other hand, an vet player using 'conentrated camps' could look like Patrick Card (WR) year 6 98-90-88-60-78-88-60-30

Given two identical players, the player that uses 'concentrated TC's will end up with higher #'s in general, but may well be less usable during the first 3-4 seasons of his career.

Balanced Training Camps

The idea of a balance TC, is that a player can be ready to play faster if the TC assignments are spread amongst several skills.

Common assignments would be :

25 (25%-25%-25% and 5 x 5%)

20 (20%-20%-20%-20% and 4 x 5%)

35 (35%-35% and 6 x 5%)

Of course, there are other variations and combinations.

While the skills trained thusly will never attain #'s as high as the concentrated TC assignments will, the player may well be a better player in the first few seasons.

A Case Study

To illustrate the differances in the differaant types of TC's I am going to select a player out of the current draft, and show the effects of various TC strategies.

For this case study, I will use ARIZONA's first round pick:

A.FULHAGE               60-74-56-46-87-78-59-39=499
                        99-99-99-91-99-95-70-99=751

first, let's look at 6 65% TC's

A.FULHAGE               60-74-56-46-87-78-59-39=499
                        99-99-99-91-99-95-70-99=751
Skills trainined        adjusted scores
65% SP                  85-75-57-47-87-78-59-40=528
65% AC                  85-91-58-48-87-78-59-41=546
65% AG                  85-91-85-49-87-78-56-42=574
65% ST                  85-91-85-74-87-78-56-43=600
65% SP                  94-91-85-74-87-78-56-44=610
65% HA                  94-91-85-74-94-78-56-45=618

You will notice that SP got trained twice.

Now let's look at 6 50% TC's

A.FULHAGE               60-74-56-46-87-78-59-39=499
                        99-99-99-91-99-95-70-99=751
Skills trainined        adjusted scores
50% SP 20% AC           79-79-57-47-87-78-59-40=526
50% AC 20% AG           79-89-65-48-87-78-59-41=546
50% AG 20% ST           79-89-82-57-87-78-59-42=573
50% ST 20% HA           79-89-82-73-89-78-59-43=592
50% SP 20% IN           88-89-82-73-89-78-61-44=604
50% AG 20% AC           88-91-89-73-89-78-61-45=614

Here, SP & AG got 2 TC's plus some extra pushes on In.

Finally lets examine using 25% TC's

A.FULHAGE               60-74-56-46-87-78-59-39=499
                        99-99-99-91-99-95-70-99=751
Skills trainined        adjusted scores
25% SP,AC AG            70-80-67-47-87-78-59-40=528
25% SP,AG,ST            77-80-75-58-87-78-59-41=555
25% SP,AC,DI            83-85-76-59-87-78-59-51=578
25% SP,AC,AG            87-88-82-60-87-78-59-52=592
25% SP,AG,ST            89-88-85-66-87-78-59-53=604
25% AC,AG,ST            89-89-86-70-87-78-59-53=610

As can be seen here. during the first couple of seasons, the player is more usable and well rounded with the balanced TC's. This effect is even greater is the player has 1 or 2 outstanding skills (80+) while having several important skills that are quite low (say 50 or less).

However, the concentrated TC's will almost always result in the player with the greater super Star skills by the en of his career. It really comes down to a philosophy, are you going for it now, and do your need your young players to contribute? Or can you afford to wait while your young players develope.

there is no 'right' way to do this, it all depends on your long term plan. I have seen championship teams developed both ways.

Bryan

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