Guide: EDT, DDT and LNC Files

EDT, DDT and LNC files are files that you can create that allow to both edit the game without the use of an editor and also allow you to choose what countries or clubs players will be loaded in a game. They are very convenient to create and use as they can all be applied to any database very easily by just putting them in the right place on your computer. They also quite small in size so they are convenient to upload and share with others.

Creating and Using Them

I will outline how to create the files in general before moving on to the specifics of each type.

1. Open any text editor e.g. notepad.
   
2. Type in the code necessary to perform what you want.
   
3. Save the file with the appropriate extension i.e. .edt for EDT files, .ddt for DDT files and .lnc (sometimes people get mixed up with that as it is a lower case 'L' and not an 'I') for LNC files.
   
4. Copy the files to whatever database you plan to use in the game. For example, if you are using an edited database on Windows then the place to put these files will be in My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2009\db\DATABASE_NAME. Then for EDT and DDT files go to the edt folder and put them in there. For LNC files continue on to the lnc folder and then to the all folder and place them in there.
   
5. If you are using one of the official databases then they will go in the directory where Football Manager is installed. For Steam users it will be in C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\tools\football manager 2009\data\db\900. Then follow as above in point 4 to place them in the relevant folder depending on the type of file you are creating. For non-Steam users the location is C:\Program Files\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2009\data\db\900.
   
6. If you are using official updated databases that came with the patches then the location is slightly different again. When you get to the Football Manager 2009 directory above, then go to the updates folder and choose your latest update or whatever one you want and then go to the db folder and continue as above.
   
7. Remember, for every new database you use, you need to make sure that the files are in the relevant folder in that particular database.
   
8. The final step to using the files in the game is before actually creating a new game but after choosing the database you want to use, you need to go into preferences and then into extra files. Tick the files that you want to apply in the game you are going to create. (This step does not need to be done for LNC files.)
   

EDT Files

These files allow you to edit certain things in the database you are going to use. Each item you want to edit is placed on a new line in the file and each edit follows the following format "COMMAND" "Option1" "Option2". The amount of options after the command depends on the particular command you are using. So now on to the commands:

• "SWAP_TEAMS" "Team1" "Team2" - This command allows you to swap a team's league division to another team's league division. An example of this command would be "SWAP_TEAMS" "Rangers" "Southampton" . This will swap the 2 teams so Rangers will take Southampton's place in the Championship and Southampton will take Rangers' place in the SPL.
  

• "BOOST_TEAM" "Team" "Bank Balance" "Reputation" "Average Attendance" - This will change a particular team's bank balance, reputation and average attendance to whatever you specify. Reputation must be less than 10000 and average attendance must be less than their current stadium capacity. An example is "BOOST_TEAM" "Rangers" "20000000" "9000" "45000". That will change Rangers bank balance to £20m, reputation to 9000 and average attendance to 45000.
  

• "CLUB_DEBT" "Amount" "Team" "Months Remaining" "Source of Loan" - This command will give a debt to a club. An example of this command would be "CLUB_DEBT" "20000000" "Rangers" "24" "Bank". This gives Rangers a loan in the game of £20m which is paid over 24 months back to the bank. The other "Source of Loan" in the game is the Chairman.
  

• "FUTURE_REGEN" "First Name" "Common Name" "Surname" "DD.MM.YYYY" "Nation" "Favourite Team" - This command will create a new player in the future in the game called whatever name and with whatever date of birth, nationality and favourite team you decide. So you can have yourself in the game. An example of this is "FUTURE_REGEN" "Ricardo" "Coco" "Oliviera" "18.03.1994" "Brazil"" "Rangers". This will mean a regen will appear in the game in the future with those details.
  

• "FUTURE_TRANSFER" "First Name" "Common Name" "Surname" "Current Club" "New Club" "DD.MM.YYYY" "Fee" "Wage" "Contract Length" - This will cause a player to transfer from one club to another on whatever date you specify. You can also choose what the fee, wage, and length of contract should be. An example of this is "FUTURE_TRANSFER" "Wayne" "" "Rooney" "Manchester United" "Celtic" "01.08.2009" "30000000" "100000" "4". This means Wayne Rooney will transfer from Man United to Celtic on August 1st 2009 for a fee of £30m and he will have a 4 year contract there on £100,000 per week.
  

• "POSITIVE_ADJECTIVES" "Word" - This inserts a word into the game that will be used in news items when a player is being talked about positively. An example is "POSITIVE_ADJECTIVES" "magical". This will mean when a player does something good that he could be described as magical by a news item.
  

• "NEGATIVE_ADJECTIVES" "Word" - Like the above command except the words are used to describe players negatively. These words will only be used on regens though and not on any real players in the game.
  

• "SUGAR_DADDY" "Team" - This will give the specified team a sugar daddy in the game so the chairman invests large sums of money. "SUGAR_DADDY" "Manchester United" will give Manchester United a sugar daddy.
  

• "NO_RICH_INDIVIDUAL_TAKEOVER" "Nation" - Clubs from the nation specified will never have a tycoon takeover in the game.
  

• "NO_CONSORTIUM_TAKEOVER" "Nation" - Clubs from the nation specified will never have a consortium takeover in the game.
  

• "NO_PLC_TAKEOVER" "Nation" - Clubs from the nation specified will never have a PLC takeover in the game.
  

• "NO_FANS_TRUST_TAKEOVER" "Nation" - Clubs from the nation specified will never have a fans trust takeover in the game.
  

• "BOARD_TAKEOVER" "First Name" "Common Name" "Surname" "DD.MM.YYYY" "Nationality" "Favourite Team" "Nation" "Number" "String" - This will insert a person into the game who will be a chairman and pursue a takeover in the future in the game. The team chosen will be their favourite team if one is specified, a team from the nation specified in a favourite team is not specifiec or a random team. The String is what their company is called and the number field is not used. So an example of this is "BOARD_TAKEOVER" "Peter" "" "O'Brien" "12.12.1960" "England" "Celtic" "Scotland" "" "EDT Business". The date is the date of birth of the person.
  

• "JOURNALIST" "First Name" "Common Name" "Surname" "DD.MM.YYYY" "Nationality" "Gender" "Favourite Team" "Media Source" "Name" "Character" - This will add a journalist to the game that will be used in the new press conference feature of FM09. Most of the fields are self explanatory maybe except the last two. Media Source Name is the name of the media that they are representing in the game. This name must be one that is already in the game or that you have edited in. Character has 6 options to choose from. They are JOURNO_NORMAL, JOURNO_DULL, JOURNO_CUNNING, JOURNO_ILL_TEMPERED, JOURNO_DISHONEST and JOURNO_NICE. An example of adding a journalist to the game would be "JOURNALIST" "Barry" "" "Malone" "01.05.1972! "England" "Male" "Arsenal" "skysports.com" "JOURNO_NICE".
  

• "MEDIA_SOURCE" "Name" "Scope" "Club" "City" "Nation" "Region" "Continent" "Competition" "Type" "Period" "DD.MM.YYYY" "Style" - This will add a media source to the game. The name is what you want them to be called. The scope can be one of either club, local, national, regional, continental, competition or worldwide. Then all the fields of club, city, nation, region, continent and competition will determine who they should report on. For all these fields though it is slightly different to what other commands in that both the Unique ID and Name must be used. The type can be either a newspaper, magazine, fanzine, radio, tv or a website. The period can be any of the options any time, weekday morning, weekly, monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, yearly, weekday evening, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. The date field indicates which date the media source will appear on specifically. Style can one of three things - unknown, tabloid or broadsheet. To make it more clear, here is an example: "MEDIA_SOURCE" "EDT Media" "MEDIA_SOURCE_SCOPE_WORLDWIDE" "" "100023-London" "" "" "" "" "MEDIA_SOURCE_TYPE_MAGAZINE" "MEDIA_SOURCE_PERIOD_MONTHLY" "01.08.2008" "". That will mean EDT Media is a magazine in the game that is published on the 1st of every month. It is based in London but covers football all over the world.
  
• "TRANSFER_EMBARGO" "Club Name" "Start Date" "End Date" - This will ban a club from making transfers in the game for the specified amount of time. Chelsea and Bournemouth have transfer embargoes placed on them by default at the start of the game. If you want to remove them, you need to alter transfer_embargo.edt in your edt folder. Example: "TRANSFER_EMBARGO" "Chelsea" "03/09/2009" "03/09/2010"
  

DDT Files

These files allow you to choose what nations or clubs players that you want to have in your game. DDT Generator is a useful resource which creates the ddt file for you.

• "RETAIN_PLAYERS" "Club" - This allows you to load all the players from the club you specify. So if you want all of Celtic's players in the game including youth players and regens coming through then you use the following command "RETAIN_PLAYERS" "Celtic"
  

• "RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" "Nation" - This allows you to load all players of a particular nationality including regens coming through. This can be used instead of the ingame feature to "Load Additional Players" when starting the game. To load all English players the command would be "RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" "England".
  

LNC Files

These files allow you to change player, team and competition names. Each item you want to edit is placed on a new line in the file and each edit follows the following format "COMMAND" Unique ID "NAME". The amount of options after the command depends on the particular command you are using. Now for the commands:

• "NAME_CHANGE" [unique ID here] "NAME" "LANGUAGE"- Use for players and common team/competition names. Example: "NAME_CHANGE" 1301396 "Champs League" "English"
  
• "LONG_NAME_CHANGE" [unique ID here] "NAME"- Use for long team names
  
• "SHORT_NAME_CHANGE" [unique ID here] "NAME" "LANGUAGE" - Use for short team names
  
• "COMP_LONG_NAME_CHANGE" [unique ID here] "NAME" "LANGUAGE" - Use for long competition names
  
• "COMP_SHORT_NAME_CHANGE" [unique ID here] "NAME" "LANGUAGE" - Use for short competition names
  
• "NATION_LONG_NAME_CHANGE" [unique ID here] "NAME" "LANGUAGE" - Use for long nation names
  
• "NATION_SHORT_NAME_CHANGE" [unique ID here] "NAME" "LANGUAGE" - Use for short nation names
  

You can leave the LANGUAGE part blank if you want, you'll need to leave the commas in though just to be safe. (i.e. "NAME_CHANGE" [unique ID here] "NAME" "")

Files Included in the Game

Some EDT and LNC files are included in your game upon installation - some of which are just guides, while others do have an effect on your game. You can find them in the default edt directory (explained above). The list is as follows:

• add_my_chairmen.edt - Simply contains information on how to make your name show up as chairman of a club. It has no effect on your game.
  
• add_my_journalists.edt - Shows you how to add journalists. It has no effect on your game.
  
• add_my_media_sources.edt - Shows you how to add media sources. It has no effect on your game.
  
• alliteration_adjectives.edt - Shows you how to add positive or negative adjectives for news items. It has no effect on your game.
  
• sugardaddy.edt - Makes clubs which have rich owners in real life have their chairman top up their bank balance and transfer/wage budgets regularly in the game. You can add to this list if you wish.
  
• team_holland.edt - Makes sure that the same players are called up to the Holland squad at the start of the game. This has to be done due to licensing issues with Team Holland.
  
• valid_takeovers_only.edt - Implements takeover restrictions in certain countries to reflect real life.
  

How to find unique IDs:

1. Go to preferences and then go to Display and Sound.
   
2. Enable "Show Unique IDs" by ticking the box.
   
3. Confirm your changes.
   
4. Go to the profile screen of the player/club/competition you want to find out the unique ID of. It should be displayed towards the top of the screen.
   

Thanks to all the guys at Football Manager Wiki (with special thanks to jod123) who contributed to the original page there. Any suggestions on what should be added/taken from the guide would be welcome - I'm sure there's something I might have passed over or haven't explained sufficiently. Cheers!

*I realise I didn't mention one or two of the LNC files, but only because this is an official forum and I'm not allowed to speak about them. So please, no requests on the licensing-issue related LNC files.

Excellent post that. Really helpful

Excellent！

excellent mate

Thanks, this could really help for CSE people who do AI stuff.

Thanks for this! It's resolved the problem of why I couldn't get an LNC file to work when I'd been using it in the demo (I didn't realise the 'update' directory had its own databases).

KUTGW!

I've updated the list to include files in the game by default.

Cheers for the support fellas.

Someone should probably sticky this so it doesn't drift down the page

Someone should probably sticky this so it doesn't drift down the page

I thought that at first, but it's in the stickied resource thread at the top

His there any chance of changing my stadium name?? Somehow it disapeared.

His there any chance of changing my stadium name?? Somehow it disapeared.

Not that I know of. You have to start a new game for these files to take effect anyway so I don't think they'll be much help.

Have you tried FMRTE? I'm not sure if you can with it but it might be worth asking in the FMRTE thread

Not that I know of. You have to start a new game for these files to take effect anyway so I don't think they'll be much help.

Have you tried FMRTE? I'm not sure if you can with it but it might be worth asking in the FMRTE thread

Nope fmrte doesn't work, from one seasson to another the name of the stadium just vanished.

Nope fmrte doesn't work, from one seasson to another the name of the stadium just vanished.

That's a strange one - has the stadium field completely vanished or is it like Stadium: [blank] ?

Either way, clearing your cache tends to be the solution for a lot of problems like these.

How to delete your cache files

First of all you need to turn on hidden files and folders. Go to My Computer and at the top select 'Tools' then 'Folder Options'. Then go to the 'View' tab and select 'Show hidden files and folders'

Windows XP:

1. Open 'My Computer'

2. Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Application Data\

3. Go into the 'Sports Interactive' folder

4. Delete the 'Football Manager 2009' folder

Wndows Vista:

1. Click 'Start'

2. Click your username on the Start Menu

3. Click on 'AppData' and then 'Roaming'

4. Go into the 'Sports Interactive' folder

5. Delete the 'Football Manager 2009' folder

Mac OSX

1. Open Finder

2. Select <User>

3. Navigate to Library\Caches\Sports Interactive

4. Remove the “Football Manager 2009” Folder

Not that I know of. You have to start a new game for these files to take effect anyway so I don't think they'll be much help.

Have you tried FMRTE? I'm not sure if you can with it but it might be worth asking in the FMRTE thread

That's a strange one - has the stadium field completely vanished or is it like Stadium: [blank] ?

Either way, clearing your cache tends to be the solution for a lot of problems like these.

It mightn't work, but it's worth a shot.

IT's the blank thingie, I've cleaned the cache and no luck, gonna cheat and use the fmrte to turn the stadium to a crappy one and maybe i'll get a new one.

Aha, glad I took a look at this. It seems the change in date formatting (from "DD MM YY" to "DD.MM.YY") explains why my FM09 EDT file doesn't work with FM10.

EDIT: Actually, it still isn't working. Hm.

Added transfer embargos to the list.

Aha, glad I took a look at this. It seems the change in date formatting (from "DD MM YY" to "DD.MM.YY") explains why my FM09 EDT file doesn't work with FM10.

EDIT: Actually, it still isn't working. Hm.

Perhaps you could try DD/MM/YY? Judging by transfer_embargo.edt the new format is DD/MM/YY. Also I take it you have made sure the game is picking up these files correctly on startup and you do have them selected?

Thanks for the suggestion. Just tried doing that and it didn't work. (EDIT: Yes, I do have the file selected when I'm starting a new game.)

Has anyone confirmed that the transfer embargoes (or any commands involving dates) actully work in FM2010? I haven't taken the game far enough to see any transfers happen, but I have seen Chelsea interested in players which is conceivably a sign that there is no embargo on them...

Incidentally, I started a thread about this problem and don't want two conversations about the same thing going on concurrently -- if a mod feels like closing that one, please do so...

I cannot get my FM09 edt files to work in this game tried almost everything, Anyone got theres to work?

Just tested the transfer embargo command by changing Chelsea's embargo to 02/07/09 until 01/09/09. Got a news item about the embargo as soon as I took charge of Chelsea, so apparently it works fine.

OK, so assuming that the date formatting is consistent for all EDT commands, it seems like there's a problem with the "FUTURE_TRANSFER" command.

Am I imagining it, or was there a similar problem last year before the first patch?

EDIT: Aha! I thought so. Is this some kind of deliberate ploy by SI?

Hmm... future transfers aren't working for me either. Probably best if one of us reports this in the bugs section?

Also, I'll try to get in touch with one of the SI guys to see if I can get a definitive list of edt commands, just in case there are some edts that I'm not aware of.

Cool, I'll let you handle it since you probably have more experience than me interacting with them.

Thanks for taking the time to check this, BTW.

No problem, I'll test out all of the commands from the list later on tonight and report all issues in one go

Found the fault in my old EDT files, all sorted

Out of interest, what was it?

Out of interest, what was it?

For some reason the 2009 files i was trying to put into the new game didnt have the "" icons in to miss out the date, So added those and the media resources appeared which enabled the Journalists to appear to there workplace

Great guide.

Quick question though, I'm looking to change a club's six letter name. Is that possible?

If so, does anyone know the command?

Thanks,

C.

Anyone know if there's a limit on how many ddt, edt or lnc files can be run at the same time or can be in the edit folder?

There isn't any definite limit as far as I'm aware.

Ah never mind, Football Manager just hangs for around 10 minutes before it responds again.

I just thought as I use 163 ddt files (not all at once).

51 'RETAIN_PLAYERS' from the playable leagues, so the leagues that aren't selected or are set to view only are selected.

54 'RETAIN_PLAYERS' from the lower leagues from the leagues that are selected as playable (countries like Italy, Spain have to as sometimes I don't select the league below seria b or the segunda division)

51 RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS from the playable leagues, so the leagues that aren't selected or are set to view only are selected.

and 7 ddt files with the rest of the worlds leagues and clubs split into region.

There might have been a problem. but for some reason it was a lot slower getting to the create game screen than it has been for FM 08\09

Could anyone please spare the time to help me get my media sources and journalists into the game?

I've never had a problem before with previous versions of the game, but for FM2010, no matter what I try, the game is just not picking them up.

I've tried editing out the dates that appear for some publications and just leaving the quotation marks (as mentioned by SGTFlipFlop), but that has no effect either.

The files appear in the Preferences menu at the start of creating a new game, and are all ticked for inclusion. Yet, once the game begins, low and behold, the same old boring (and sometimes slightly incorrectly worded) SI local media show up for my press conferences.

Could anyone perhaps offer a screenshot of exactly what what needs to be where, so I can check what I'm doing wrong?

Finally got my edited database into the game, and now my media won't work. *sigh* I just want to start playing.

Thanks if you can help.

Benn.

Bit of a daft question here, but are the 'retain players' files generated by the DDT generator still compatible with FM10?

Bit of a daft question here, but are the 'retain players' files generated by the DDT generator still compatible with FM10?

.........or do we need to change the date format, as suggested further up the thread??

is there any way to make a transfer embargo for every team for the first transfer window?

when editting the transfer_embargo.edt file,

a) i can't save it as a .edt

or

b)can't save it to the file

There used to be a way to organise international friendlies in an EDT file. Is this still possible, and if so what are the commands?

when editting the transfer_embargo.edt file,

a) i can't save it as a .edt

or

b)can't save it to the file

It should already be in edt format so you shouldn't have to worry about saving it as a particular file type.

There used to be a way to organise international friendlies in an EDT file. Is this still possible, and if so what are the commands?

There isn't as far as I'm aware, but I'll ask someone at SI for you shortly. *

*I realise that I had promised others to ask someone from SI about some edt query or another ages ago, but I've been very busy as of late and didn't have the time to do it. I'll try to get it done some time in the next few days.

There used to be a way to organise international friendlies in an EDT file. Is this still possible, and if so what are the commands?

Not sure if you know but you can do that in the main editor.

Not sure if you know but you can do that in the main editor.

I do now. Thank you kind sir!

where should i put the edt-files for FM2010???

is this still possible???

Yeah, you can.

If you use steam, they go here: C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\tools\football manager 2010\data\db\1020\edt

And if you didn't use steam: C:\Program Files\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\data\db\1020

I'll edit the opening post to make things a bit clearer.

Thanks,

you've really cleared it all up for me!!!

excellent OP.. really helpful..

I have a question about FUTURE_REGEN. Is the regen's first/last name taken into account when generating names of other regens?

whats the word on DDT files, will they work, if so where to put them etc?

I've created an edt file swapping most of the English Clubs with the Scottish ones but can't get the game to recognise it for some reason. I've saved it as an edt file and put it in the correct folder but this hasn't made a difference. I am using the 10.3 patch so if anyone has any help on how to get this working then I'd appreciate it.

Never mind. I've figured out what the problem is. I only noticed the update folder after reading another thread and think the edt should be in there.

I'm using someone's add-on league (Kenco's World League). As I have already started the game, I can now only change the league names in my current save with an .lnc file.

I have changed a few in a separate "fix" file and have tried this in the 10.3 update folder and the db and editor data folders in my docs. No matter where I put it I can't seem to get it to work.

Any suggestions?

Can you write a files similar to these for other sports management games e.g. Premier Manager, Championship Manager, Cricket Coach, International Cricket Captain and NHL Eastside Hockey Manager?

Is it possible to make a ddt file to load all players from a certain league? And would this work for leagues that are added by xml or dbc files?