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Auto-Play (Simulating Games)
Some players love playing out a game and coaching the team on the field. Others prefer the general manager role and just want to see the results of the games. There are two ways to play out baseball games in OOTPB, and you can mix and match the two to suit your preference: auto-play and play-by-play.
The auto-play feature tells the computer to play out all the games in a certain date range, without any input from you. In previous versions of OOTP, this was called 'simulating' or 'simming' games. Unless you are going to manually play out each game for each team in your league, you will end up using Auto-Play frequently.
Auto-play is also the only way to get the clock moving forward in your leagues. Until you use auto-play, your league will never advance past the current day.
Warning! Auto-play advances time across all leagues in a game file simultaneously. There is no way to advance time in one league, but not in another. If you are using multiple leagues, be sure all leagues are ready to move forward before auto-playing.
There are two ways to auto-play in OOTPB: the Finish Today button, or the Auto-Play menu.
The Finish Today Button
The Finish Today button is a big baseball icon in the lower-right corner of almost every page in the game.
Clicking the Finish Today button advances time in your league by one day. All events scheduled for that day will be played out by the computer. If there are games scheduled, the computer will play them all, even for human-controlled teams. Any scheduled events will be auto-played as well. For example, if you auto-play over the week where the first-year player draft will be held, the computer will conduct the draft automatically.
The Finish Today button has no additional functionality. You cannot use the Finish Today button to auto-play multiple days.
Warning! Be careful with the Finish Today button. You have no chance to confirm after you click this button, so make sure you have made all necessary management changes before clicking. Once you click Finish Today, that day is in the history books.
The Auto-Play Menu
The Auto-Play menu is a menu that drops down from another baseball graphic located to the right of the menus and navigation arrows at the top of each page.
The Auto-Play menu allows you to simulate play for a date range with one click. The top five options are described below.
In addition, below these options, the auto-play menu includes a list of league events. These events listed in the menu will change dynamically based on where you are in your league's season cycle. They allow you to auto-play until the day of a specific event, instead of going week by week or month by month. As with the other auto-play options, auto-playing to a specific league event will bring you to the morning of that day.
League events are specific to each league. If your game world has multiple leagues, be careful. For example, let's say you have two leagues in your world. League A has an annual first-year player draft in June. League B has no first-year player draft. If you currently have League B selected from the League menu, the June first-year player draft will not appear in your Auto-Play menu, because that league has no draft. Don't auto-play past the draft day by mistake!
Warning! Auto-play advances time in all leagues simultaneously. There is no way to advance the date in one league, but not another. If you are using multiple leagues, make sure all leagues are ready to advance before auto-playing.
Warning! Be careful with the Auto-Play button. You have no chance to confirm after you click this button, so make sure you have made all necessary management changes before electing to auto-play.
Also, do not use auto-play if you would like to play out your games using the play-by-play engine. Click here for more information on Play-by-Play mode.
The Auto-Play Action Menus
The Scores & Schedule page has two Auto-Play action menus at the bottom right of the page, Auto-Play and Auto-Play until Event.
These auto-play options are very similar to those described so far. In fact, the Auto-Play until Event action menu behaves just like the Auto-Play menu by allowing you to auto-play up until a specific league event. The Auto-Play action menu gives the standard options of auto-playing until next year, month, or week.
The one important difference in the auto-play options: if you change the calendar to a different date, a new option appears in the Auto-Play menu: Auto-Play to Selected Date. This works very much like the 'Auto-play to Date X' option.
Auto-Play Display
While auto-play is in progress, by default a Standings/Leaderboards page is displayed, showing simplified standings, leaderboard, and news headlines:
However, auto-play is significantly slower when this page is used. If you want to speed up auto-play, you can change to the faster Dialog View by changing the Auto-Play Display option in the Preferences.
The Dialog View shows a dialog box that shows the date being auto-played:
You can switch back and forth between these two options at any time.
Auto-Play from the Manager Home
The Manager Home page also includes some auto-play options:
These options behave similarly to the other auto-play options, with the added option of auto-playing until the day of your team's next game.
Stopping Auto-Play
When auto-play is in progress using the Standings/Leaderboard page, you can stop auto-play by clicking on the Stop Auto-Play action button in the lower right corner of the page.
In Dialog View, you can stop auto-play by pressing any key on the keyboard.
Managers can also turn on settings that will cause auto-play to stop if certain conditions are met, such as a player getting injured. Click here for more information on manager exit auto-play settings.
Note: On some systems, the response to stopping auto-play can be sluggish at times. In these cases, you may need to press the button or key several times.
helpx_auto_play
Some players love playing out a game and coaching the team on the field. Others prefer the general manager role and just want to see the results of the games. There are two ways to play out baseball games in OOTPB, and you can mix and match the two to suit your preference: auto-play and play-by-play.
The auto-play feature tells the computer to play out all the games in a certain date range, without any input from you. In previous versions of OOTP, this was called 'simulating' or 'simming' games. Unless you are going to manually play out each game for each team in your league, you will end up using Auto-Play frequently.
Auto-play is also the only way to get the clock moving forward in your leagues. Until you use auto-play, your league will never advance past the current day.
Warning! Auto-play advances time across all leagues in a game file simultaneously. There is no way to advance time in one league, but not in another. If you are using multiple leagues, be sure all leagues are ready to move forward before auto-playing.
There are two ways to auto-play in OOTPB: the Finish Today button, or the Auto-Play menu.
The Finish Today Button
The Finish Today button is a big baseball icon in the lower-right corner of almost every page in the game.
Clicking the Finish Today button advances time in your league by one day. All events scheduled for that day will be played out by the computer. If there are games scheduled, the computer will play them all, even for human-controlled teams. Any scheduled events will be auto-played as well. For example, if you auto-play over the week where the first-year player draft will be held, the computer will conduct the draft automatically.
The Finish Today button has no additional functionality. You cannot use the Finish Today button to auto-play multiple days.
Warning! Be careful with the Finish Today button. You have no chance to confirm after you click this button, so make sure you have made all necessary management changes before clicking. Once you click Finish Today, that day is in the history books.
The Auto-Play Menu
The Auto-Play menu is a menu that drops down from another baseball graphic located to the right of the menus and navigation arrows at the top of each page.
The Auto-Play menu allows you to simulate play for a date range with one click. The top five options are described below.
| Option | Description |
| Auto-Play Today | Advances the current date in your game universe by one day, auto-playing all games that occur on that day using the current settings. |
| Auto-Play until Next Week | Advances the current date in your game universe until Monday of the next week, auto-playing all games that occur during that time using the current settings. Monday games will not be auto-played. Depending on the day of the week when you select this option, this option could auto-play from 1 to 7 days. |
| Auto-Play until Next Month | Advances the current date in your game universe until the first of the next month, auto-playing all games that occur during that time using the current settings. Games on the first day of the next month will not be auto-played. Depending on the date when you select this option, this option could auto-play from 1 to 31 days. |
| Auto-Play until Next Year | Advances the current date in your game universe until January 1 of the next year, auto-playing all games that occur during that time using the current settings. Games on January 1 will not be auto-played. Depending on the date when you select this option, this option could auto-play from 1 to 365 days. |
| Auto-Play until Date X | Opens a dialog box in which you can select a specific date to which you wish to auto-play. Select a date, and click the Simulate button to auto-play until the selected date. Note: Auto-playing to a specific date will NOT auto-play any games scheduled for that date. In other words, auto-playing to March 10th will bring you to the morning of March 10th, before any games have been played. |
In addition, below these options, the auto-play menu includes a list of league events. These events listed in the menu will change dynamically based on where you are in your league's season cycle. They allow you to auto-play until the day of a specific event, instead of going week by week or month by month. As with the other auto-play options, auto-playing to a specific league event will bring you to the morning of that day.
League events are specific to each league. If your game world has multiple leagues, be careful. For example, let's say you have two leagues in your world. League A has an annual first-year player draft in June. League B has no first-year player draft. If you currently have League B selected from the League menu, the June first-year player draft will not appear in your Auto-Play menu, because that league has no draft. Don't auto-play past the draft day by mistake!
Warning! Auto-play advances time in all leagues simultaneously. There is no way to advance the date in one league, but not another. If you are using multiple leagues, make sure all leagues are ready to advance before auto-playing.
Warning! Be careful with the Auto-Play button. You have no chance to confirm after you click this button, so make sure you have made all necessary management changes before electing to auto-play.
Also, do not use auto-play if you would like to play out your games using the play-by-play engine. Click here for more information on Play-by-Play mode.
The Auto-Play Action Menus
The Scores & Schedule page has two Auto-Play action menus at the bottom right of the page, Auto-Play and Auto-Play until Event.
These auto-play options are very similar to those described so far. In fact, the Auto-Play until Event action menu behaves just like the Auto-Play menu by allowing you to auto-play up until a specific league event. The Auto-Play action menu gives the standard options of auto-playing until next year, month, or week.
The one important difference in the auto-play options: if you change the calendar to a different date, a new option appears in the Auto-Play menu: Auto-Play to Selected Date. This works very much like the 'Auto-play to Date X' option.
Auto-Play Display
While auto-play is in progress, by default a Standings/Leaderboards page is displayed, showing simplified standings, leaderboard, and news headlines:
However, auto-play is significantly slower when this page is used. If you want to speed up auto-play, you can change to the faster Dialog View by changing the Auto-Play Display option in the Preferences.
The Dialog View shows a dialog box that shows the date being auto-played:
You can switch back and forth between these two options at any time.
Auto-Play from the Manager Home
The Manager Home page also includes some auto-play options:
These options behave similarly to the other auto-play options, with the added option of auto-playing until the day of your team's next game.
Stopping Auto-Play
When auto-play is in progress using the Standings/Leaderboard page, you can stop auto-play by clicking on the Stop Auto-Play action button in the lower right corner of the page.
In Dialog View, you can stop auto-play by pressing any key on the keyboard.
Managers can also turn on settings that will cause auto-play to stop if certain conditions are met, such as a player getting injured. Click here for more information on manager exit auto-play settings.
Note: On some systems, the response to stopping auto-play can be sluggish at times. In these cases, you may need to press the button or key several times.
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