NCAA 06 PS2 Dynasty Save File Editing

[tinpanalley]

I just wanted to pop in here and say all this work is fascinating. I would love an updated NCAA 06 roster even with the 06 conferences. I have a question I was hoping to get some help on and it looks like you guys might be able to help.

I've got a dynasty file from another site (maybe you're even the one who made it?) that was updated last season. However, certain things cause freezes. I know a bit about modding 2K games from the mid-noughties and I know that there is often a breaking point beyond which edits actually start to break the game.

Anyway, what I was hoping you could help with is that I'd like to JUST take my one team, extract all its data with some db editor and reinject it into a new dynasty where I only name my team. My theory is that all the edits this person did is making the dynasty save unstable. Is there a program that would let me do that kind of edit on NCAA 06? The thing is, I can't imagine an up to date roster for 06 ever existing so I'm living with just playing the game with its existing rosters and updating my team so that at least I can see some recognisable players. I've done this before in old sports games that don't get roster support from the community anymore. It's obviously completely unrealistic but when a game is that good, I feel like it's worth it. I did this once with MLB2K5 once too, the World Series edition allowed you to start a seasson mid-end of season-pennant race and it was so much fun I didn't care that only my team had up to date rosters.

[Harry97]

You've come to the right place. I'm not the one who made the Dynasty save that was updated last season and released on the other site. antdroid/minotauri did that. He released many files for NCAA 06 including Rosters and Dynasty saves but as I've informed him, his files contain many issues, glitches, bugs, etc. The Dynasty file that he released last year that you are referring to is unstable for sure. And the freezes you are experiencing while using his Dynasty file are a result of that. I admire what antdroid/minotauri tried to do there but unfortunately he had not tested it thoroughly enough on PS2 and it is not a reliable file to base your dynasty on. To avoid glitches and freezes you have to edit your Dynasty save starting from a New Dynasty. There are many details about this process of editing a Saved Dynasty that go into this, which is the main reason I created this topic.

However despite the problems with the rosters and dynasty edits he's released, much credit needs to go to antdroid/minotauri for his excellent Excel conversion tools which are the building blocks that made possible to convert an NCAA 14 PS3 roster into a NCAA 06 PS2.

So when you say "I can't imagine an up to date roster for 06 ever existing", an up to date roster in NCAA 06 can be made from a PS3 roster thanks to the work antdroid/minotauri did in creating the Excel conversion tools. By using his Excel tools, you can take an NCAA 14 PS3 roster and convert it to NCAA 06 PS2. However, it's important to understand that many additional steps within Excel are needed after using minotaurs's roster conversion tool to make the converted roster glitch-free in NCAA 06. This is what I've been working on. I've picked up where antdroid/minotauri left off since he disappeared from the NCAA PS2 scene.

So converting NCAA 14 PS3 rosters to NCAA 06 PS2 through antdroid/minotauri's tool is only the first step to having an accurate up to date roster, then there are many additional steps needed to be done to the roster in Excel to create a glitch free roster in NCAA 06. And once all that additional Excel work is complete, only then will you have a finalized up to date roster ready to take into a new dynasty. Then the Dynasty editing begins. You can name coaches and create their appearance at the start of a New Dynasty in-game, but that's the only time you can edit coach names / appearances in-game. But if you extract a saved Dynasty from the memory card, you can edit the names and appearance of coaches at any time during a Dynasty in externally in Excel. You can also edit/create the schedule for the season externally in Excel replacing all the generated games. That's good to hear that you are using PCSX2 to run NCAA 06.

So learning how to convert PS3 roster to NCAA 06 through minotauri's tool is a starting point. I'll help you with it. There are tons of tricks and discoveries I've figured out to take a converted roster and get all the skin tones, body size, etc correct on PS2 after using his tool. To accomplish this you need to know how to manipulate data in Excel and use Excel functions to re-scale and modify the data in the columns of ratings in a roster. For example, minotauri's tool converts the skin tones from PS3 to PS2 correct, but it does not match up the skin tones of the player faces correctly based on the converted skin tone. So there's manual work that needs to be done in Excel to get this right. The body size % slider is a complicated problem with the way it works in NCAA 06. As others have observed, the slider is glitchy in-game in NCAA 06's roster editor. It requires balancing in Excel so when you use the in-game roster editor the body size % doesn't become glitchy. It's tricky to get it right but I've developed a process that works. So I suggest you learn how to convert PS3 rosters to NCAA 06 through minotauri's tool and I can walk you through the additional steps that need to be done in Excel.

Now in regards to what you asked about, about taking a roster you've already edited in-game, for your favorite team I'm guessing, and extracting the players that you've named on your favorite team, that can be done in Excel. As far as injecting those players in a saved Dynasty at the beginning of a New Dynasty, I can show you how to find and extract the player data that you've edited in-game in the roster. From there you can copy and paste that player data in Excel into any roster or saved Dynasty. You can for example take a team of named players in a saved NCAA 06 roster, copy them to a new Sheet in Excel, and then place those players into another roster, or into a saved Dynasty. Though injecting only your team's players into a saved Dynasty might be tricky depending on when in a saved Dynasty you are. For example, the Players .csv (PLAY.csv) contain additional columns for when players ratings increase or decrease during a Dynasty. Though I believe that these additional columns for ratings increases / decrease only appear once the season has started, not if you extract the PLAY table at the beginning of a dynasty where the columns would be the same as in a normal roster. So what you're asking is possible, though I typically work with a complete converted roster and take the full roster into a New Dynasty vs just having one team named.

So what I would suggest for you is before you even attempt to convert a PS3 roster is just learn how to open up your edited roster in Excel, so you can learn how external roster editing works. Here's how to do that :

You can extract your roster by using the program MyMC to export your roster save file from your PS2 memory card / PCSX2 memory card file as a maxdrive (.max) file. You use MyMC to open your memory card, and you extract the roster as a .max file. Then you use a program called PS2 Save Builder 0.8x to open the .max file and then you extract the BASLUS-21214 file inside.

The BASLUS-21214 file can be opened directly by the program Madden Editor 3.0 which you can find here :

http://footballidiot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18332

Once you open the BASLUS-21214 (NCAA 06 roster file) inside Madden Editor 3.0, you click on the PLAY tab and wait until it loads. (it takes a few minutes to load) Then when it's done you can export the PLAY.csv which is the list of all the players in the 1A roster. Then you can open up the Players .csv in Excel and view all the players in the game and their ratings. You won't be able to read the player names here because in an NCAA 06 roster, each letter of the player name has its own column and its own value, which are the columns at the far left of the PLAY table. (that's one of the differences between a PS3 roster and a PS2 roster, in a PS3 roster the full names of the players are readable in Excel, one of the things antdroid/minotauri's conversion tool does is it converts the player names to the PS2 format which is a column for each letter of a player name)

To find your team of edited players in the PLAY table, you have to determine where the players for your team starts and ends in the long list of players in the PLAY table of a 1A roster. If your team is the only "named" team in your roster it will be very easy to find your players as players on other teams who are not named will be blank in the columns for letters. If all players on the other teams are named in the roster based on an original 2005 season roster then I will help you locate your team's players inside the PLAY.csv. Each team has 70 PGIDs (Player IDs) allocated to the team and they are listed in alphabetical order by team in the PLAY table. So the teams are grouped alphabetically based on the Row # not PGIDs, but specific PGIDs are assigned for each player slot for each team and the PGIDs are generally (but not entirely) increasing order. Also FYI specific PGIDs are what determines who the impact players are on a given team, so by changing PGIDs you can choose who the impact players on a team are. Within each 70 players per team, the players themselves are not in any order whatsoever, so you just need to locate where players for each team start and finish within the list of players in the PLAY table. I can help you locate your team of named players once you have opened the PLAY table in Excel.

What I'm trying to create is a team dedicated to updating NCAA 06 every year in terms of up to date rosters converted from PS3 and a Dynasty save with accurate coaches, schedule, etc. Custom Conferences could be a little difficult because I don't think NCAA 06's Dynasty will allow more than 12 teams in a conference but we can still do the schedule and the coaches. But anyone who is serious about working with me on this needs to learn the basics first like converting PS3 rosters and opening up saved rosters in Excel and learning how to edit a roster externally. Once you learn that then we can get into the Dynasty editing stuff which is much more time consuming and adventurous. So if you want to jump onboard this NCAA 06 modding train, you have come to the right place. The adventure that I've been on in modding NCAA 06 has truly been fascinating with all the stuff I've learned and figured out. I really would like to find some good men who have a passion for college football to work with me on this project.

Identifying the players on your team in the PLAY table is a good first step which will help you see how a roster can be edited Externally in Excel. If you have any questions please let me know.

[tinpanalley]

Now in regards to what you asked about, about taking a roster you've already edited in-game, for your favorite team I'm guessing, and extracting the players that you've named on your favorite team, that can be done in Excel.

Basically, to be clear, what I want to do is take the Irish from that dynasty file from OS and just inject that team into a default dynasty so they're the only one named with 2020's team. Yes, I understand the silliness of it being a 2005 league with one team from 2020 but I figure there is no other roster, I can at least have fun playing a fantasy season where the Irish are this year's team. I think the aim, which is to play NCAA 06 is greater than the exact reality of the season I'll be playing.

But I do find everything else interesting so I'll read all that as well. Thank you!

[Harry97]

Basically, to be clear, what I want to do is take the Irish from that dynasty file from OS and just inject that team into a default dynasty so they're the only one named with 2020's team. Yes, I understand the silliness of it being a 2005 league with one team from 2020 but I figure there is no other roster, I can at least have fun playing a fantasy season where the Irish are this year's team. I think the aim, which is to play NCAA 06 is greater than the exact reality of the season I'll be playing.

But I do find everything else interesting so I'll read all that as well. Thank you!

To do that, you need to extract the PLAY.csv from the Dynasty or Roster that you want to take the named Notre Dame players from. For you to do what you want to do you have to learn how to extract a roster or dynasty save and open up the PLAY table (the list of players) in Excel.

Once you're there, I'll help you locate the Notre Dame players in the list so you can copy and paste the player data between a Roster save or a Dynasty save. Do you have Excel?

[tinpanalley]

Basically, to be clear, what I want to do is take the Irish from that dynasty file from OS and just inject that team into a default dynasty so they're the only one named with 2020's team. Yes, I understand the silliness of it being a 2005 league with one team from 2020 but I figure there is no other roster, I can at least have fun playing a fantasy season where the Irish are this year's team. I think the aim, which is to play NCAA 06 is greater than the exact reality of the season I'll be playing.

But I do find everything else interesting so I'll read all that as well. Thank you!

To do that, you need to extract the PLAY.csv from the Dynasty or Roster that you want to take the named Notre Dame players from. For you to do what you want to do you have to learn how to extract a roster or dynasty save and open up the PLAY table (the list of players) in Excel.

Once you're there, I'll help you locate the Notre Dame players in the list so you can copy and paste the player data between a Roster save or a Dynasty save. Do you have Excel?

Yeah, in fact I've been playing with roster files for sports games for about 20 years, bit longer actually, so while I'm no expert I'm familiar with the kinds of operations one needs to do. I just figure with only one team renamed and ratings transferred over the dynasty file probably won't crash. I was hoping I could just inject the team into a roster file to start my OWN dynasty to avoid any issues.

[Harry97]

Yeah, in fact I've been playing with roster files for sports games for about 20 years, bit longer actually, so while I'm no expert I'm familiar with the kinds of operations one needs to do. I just figure with only one team renamed and ratings transferred over the dynasty file probably won't crash. I was hoping I could just inject the team into a roster file to start my OWN dynasty to avoid any issues.

Great! Yeah I learned the basics of Excel years ago in school but it was only in the last couple of years that I started to really apply my Excel knowledge when I started to work with the roster data from an NCAA 06 PS2 roster in Excel. I realized I could use all kinds of Excel functions to "mass edit" . player ratings and basically "correct" a lot of the issues that antdroid/minotauri had when he started converting PS3 NCAA rosters to PS2 with his PS3 to PS2 roster converting tool.

I am very interested to hear that you have been working with roster files for sports games for 20 years. That's interesting, I know you said you did some work with the 2K football games? Are you talking about games like NFL 2K? Editing the roster save files? I think I understand what you want to do. You want to take a named Notre Dame team that you found in a Dynasty file. Was it antdroid's 2019 Dynasty NCAA 06 PS2 dynasty file from last year which contained a named Notre Dame's 2019 roster?

It sounds like you want to take those named Notre Dame players and extract those players then inject those named players into a base NCAA 06 PS2 unnamed roster and then take that roster into a New Dynasty so you have a Notre Dame team of named players who are on the current Notre Dame team with the rest of teams unnamed. What had me confused is that you said you wanted to inject the Notre Dame named players into a Dynasty. (which I thought meant a Dynasty Save File) But I would agree that it would be better to inject that player data into a regular "unnamed" roster then take that roster into a New Dynasty.

So you just need to get the program MyMC, PS2 Save Builder 0.8x and Madden Editor 3.0. You need two roster files. One just a base 2005 season roster of unnamed players. Save it then via MyMC open your PCSX2 memory card and extract that roster as a .max file. Then I can walk you through opening both that base roster and the saves Dynasty file in which the named Notre Dame team and extracting the PLAY.csv from both the base roster and the Dynasty file with the named Notre Dame team. Once you open both PLAY.csv's in Excel alls you need to do is simply find the ND players and copy the 70 "rows" of Notre Dame players from one PLAY.csv to the other, then import the edited PLAY.csv back in the roster via Madden Editor 3.0. Then save the BASLUS file, then open up the .max file (the base roster) in PS2 Save Builder, then import the BASLUS file (deleting the original BASLUS file first) then saving a new .max file then using MyMC to put the new edited roster on your memory card. Then fire up PCSX2 and you got your new roster!

[tinpanalley]

It sounds like you want to...

Yeah, that's exactly right. Only because it doesn't look like there's any other option for playing a fully up to date roster right now.
Any clue if this works for XBOX?

[Harry97]

Yeah, that's exactly right. Only because it doesn't look like there's any other option for playing a fully up to date roster right now.

The option to play a fully up to date roster right now exists, it involves taking a completed NCAA 14 PS3 roster, using antdroid's/minotauri's Excel conversion tools to convert the roster to PS2, and then continuing to work the roster in Excel following the conversion to correct all of the remaining issues. I can help you with this.

Any clue if this works for XBOX?

I haven't tried this myself, but I have heard that some have tried but they have not had success editing an Original Xbox NCAA roster externally or converting an Xbox360 or PS3 roster to an Original Xbox NCAA save files through the methods that work on PS2 NCAA save files. I have heard that they get errors when trying to load an externally edited roster on the Original Xbox.

[tinpanalley]

The option to play a fully up to date roster right now exists, it involves taking a completed NCAA 14 PS3 roster, using antdroid's/minotauri's Excel conversion tools to convert the roster to PS2, and then continuing to work the roster in Excel following the conversion to correct all of the remaining issues. I can help you with this.

Ohhh, I see. I misunderstood. I thought you had suggested that the other OS dynasty project is buggy and that there isn't a solution for it. Ok, then in that case, yes, I am interested in taking the latest PS3 roster and applying it on 06 but can I get a sense of the kind of time involved? It isn't already released somewhere is it?

[Harry97]

Ohhh, I see. I misunderstood. I thought you had suggested that the other OS dynasty project is buggy and that there isn't a solution for it. Ok, then in that case, yes, I am interested in taking the latest PS3 roster and applying it on 06 but can I get a sense of the kind of time involved? It isn't already released somewhere is it?

I was responding to your comment about the Dynasty file released by antdroid. You stated "My theory is that all the edits this person did is making the dynasty save unstable." Your theory is correct. The freezes you are getting while trying to use that Dynasty file is due to the file being unstable. This is because editing a Dynasty save file like he tried to do requires careful editing. And the reason you want to take the named 2019 Notre Dame team from the roster in his Dynasty file and inject it into a base unnamed roster is because you see that there are problems with his roster and you want to try to edit the players that are already named there and correct all the issues by using the in-game 1A Roster editor. Which you can do to an extent, at least as far as correcting player appearances, but it's better to correct the issues externally so you don't need to do any manual work to the roster in-game. You want to put the named Notre Dame roster you found in that Dynasty file into an unnamed roster because you don't want to have to go through all 100+ teams and correct then in-game because that's too time consuming, that's why you just want to throw the 2019 ND in with a base unnamed roster that you know isn't buggy. (the other teams besides ND) I personally haven't tested his 2019 Dynasty file because I was aware that it was buggy and unstable.

He tried to create custom conferences but he didn't do enough testing of it in NCAA 06 PS2, he just released it. Similarly, his rosters are also buggy and I've tried to help him correct the issues. You can correct the skin tone issues in his rosters by using the in-game NCAA 06 PS2 editor. You have to go through every player and edit the player face in Edit Player > Appearance. But doing that causes the body type % slider to rise exponentially each time you access Edit Player in the Main Menu of NCAA 06 and make a change to a player. This is because his DB values that determine body type % need to be adjusted. It's something that I worked on extensively to correct which required a lot of testing. The body type % slider will always increase each time to access Edit Player in-game but with the correct values they won't cause the body size % to max out to 99% each time you access the Edit Player which causes the player model to glitch out and appear wrong in-game. DB values change automatically each time you access a player in-game in Edit Player and save the roster following your in-game edits.

The Dynasty save is a much more complicated file than the roster so when you edit a PS2 Dynasty save like he has, it can easily create crashes or problems if you aren't careful when editing the file. This is the main reason why I created this topic, to break down all the problems that can occur when you edit the Dynasty file improperly. Now I personally haven't experienced any crashes when testing my edited Dynasties but I am very careful in how I edit the file. The solution is for you to learn how to take custom PS3 rosters and convert them to the PS2 format and create a NCAA 06 roster that way, then through Excel data work, learn how to solve the remaining problems coming out of the conversion process. (like for example, getting the skin tones of the player faces to be the same as the skin tone of the rest of the body which was a problem in antdroid/minotauri's rosters) A lot of this will require you to make Excel edits, then test it in-game, make more edits in Excel, test it again in-game until the roster looks good. Also by going through the PS3 to PS2 roster conversion process, you have a way to read what the player names are in Excel because even after you convert the roster to the PS2 format you can always go back to the original PS3 file and find the player names which are listed in a single column in Excel, unlike the player names in a PS2 roster which has 1 column for every letter and can't be read as easily when going through the Players table. (PLAY.csv) And if you use the Dynasty editor you can even see which team the players are on when you are viewing the PS3 roster. So then you can easily find where the Notre Dame players start and end in the list of players in the PLAY.csv table inside of a roster by matching up the PS3 roster to the PS2 roster and comparing it row by row.

As far as the kind of time involved, converting a PS3 roster to PS2 is relatively straight forward, there's a lot of steps to get a roster perfect. If you don't know what you're doing it can be overwhelming at first, but it becomes satisfying if you get to the level I have with this. Editing a saved Dynasty is much more time consuming and open-ended because it involves a ton of different csv from within the Dynasty save. With a roster it's pretty much only the PLAY table that you need to be concerned with. The depth charts are also there but after converting a roster to PS2 you'll need to re-order all the depth charts in-game. In addition, after finalizing your roster there is a method to correcting all of your POVRs. (Player's Overall rating) The POVR will change as you edit the roster in Excel, but it won't correct itself until you access a player in-game in the Edit Player Menu. Also you need to delete some of the players that are in a PS3 roster because many of the players are on teams that aren't a 1A school in NCAA 06. Some of the teams in a PS3 1A roster (like Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Texas State, and Western Kentucky) are a 1AA school in NCAA 06 so the players on those teams need to be moved to a 1AA NCAA 06 roster which involves copying the player data from the PS3 roster while retaining the PGIDs from the base 1AA NCAA 06 PS2 roster. And teams like Coastal Carolina who aren't in NCAA 06 at all need to be added to NCAA 06 via the Create-A-School feature. To get the Coastal Carolina team from a PS3 roster into NCAA 06 you need to create a school in NCAA 06 then export the Create-A-School then open up the Create-A-School roster in Excel and then you can replace the generated players that are created when you Create-A-School with the Coastal Carolina players from the PS3 roster while retaining the PGIDs from the original Create-A-School roster. That's how you get an updated Coastal Carolina in NCAA 06 from a PS3 roster. I recently learned how to do all this, it can be really fun. Once you get into it, you'll find the Excel work to be time consuming but also fun as well because you can really create the up to date rosters of your dreams.