How to insert competitions, players, staff permanently in the database

Seems that no many editor users know this way, but it can be very useful.. above all because it avoid us to spend a lot of time merging multiple files, or to reloading the database on the editor when we switch from a file (with database modifications) to another...

How to insert a change in the database in the manner it will be loaded (both in the game and in the editor) as default?

First of all, I need to do the modifications I wish and to save it in a .dbc file. In the example I'm going to show, I create several Top divisions for some countries that are not present in the default fm12 database. In the case of St Kitts & Nevis, the created competition look like this in the editor:

We can see that created competions have always a unique ID like 1000000xx, and a random ID.

When I finished to create all the leagues, I need to move the file (named CaribbeanLeagues.dbc) from the editor data folder to this folder: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\football manager 2012\data\db\12xx\dbc

Then I reload the database on the editor. The first consequence I can note, is that the competitions are present even if I removed the .dbc file from the editor data folder, and they have a unique ID assigned:

St Kitts & Nevis top division:

If I load a new game in FM, I can see the created competitions in the continent ranking of competions:

Now I want to add a nation rule for the St Kitts & Nevis league, the competition I need is already present when I load the default database on the editor, no need of further changes. If I want to load another editor file when I finished, simply click on "load editor data", no need to attend the time to reload the database, beacause I did not make any change..

When I load the new league in the game, the new created league will have the unique ID we have seen on the editor

If I want to share my created league on a forum, simply I need to upload both the files, the one with the nation rule to put on the editor data, and the one with the database changes with the instructions, for the other players, about the folder where they have to put it (C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\football manager 2012\data\db\12xx\dbc).

Making all the changes we need in a single (but not necessary single) file on the dbc database folder, also decreases the risk of conflict crashes, if we accidentally do a modification on the same thing (competition, player or staff).

Of course the process is easily reversible, if we want to erase the changes from the database, we have only to remove the dbc file from the dbc folder..

This is an excellent find, I always assumed you could do this but never actually tried.

What happens if you create a new folder inside the dbc folder, will the game still read the changes?

EDIT: I can confirm that this works also, I might try this for my next release. It will be easy enough to create a folder for individual releases, this way you can always delete it once done.

I had the intuition when I've seen several dbc files already present in the database folder. This resoved me also several problems with the avdanced panel, when otherwise I had to merge multiple data with a lot of time to spent..

Nice work, Nom! Am I understanding correctly that this would allow me to run multiple nation/continent/international rules files with the basic editor that have created competitions in the same game without crashes due to conflicting unique IDs?

Nice find nom245:applause: , will the amount of files or changes still have an impact though, ie with my FM World Db theres over 220 files (only 130 can be loaded at 1 time) with approximately 40K changes in total, even though with this system the 40K changes will be in the steam folder and the nation rules with minimal changes will be in the editor data folder will the game still multiple the changes across the files rendering the processing time useless ?.

great! i use advanced panel for very long time and this will help

Nice work, Nom! Am I understanding correctly that this would allow me to run multiple nation/continent/international rules files with the basic editor that have created competitions in the same game without crashes due to conflicting unique IDs?

I think it is sure the way the more safety. I made such a test: I added a new competition, giving them a certain nationality. I saved the same file with another name. I changed at the same competition (same random ID then) name, colours and nationality. Then I moved both the files into the dbc folder. So I had two competitions with the same ID, the best way to cause a crash. When I reload data into the editor, I found only one of them, the second I made. I don't know if it is casual or the game is really able to see the more recent changes (because I had not made further tests), but the thing the more important is that I have not a crash...

I think this will only really help with database changes but as a consequence of that will help create competition rules for multiple files as there will be a new Unique ID. It is likely however that many amendments will need to be made for your files as the Unique ID's they were previously linked to will no longer exist if the competition is one you created.

I do worry that we will have only solved part of the problem people are having, there will still be clashes if someone else releases a file with competition rules and the database changes in this format. They are unlikely to work with anyone elses released in this same way without having tweaks. But please correct me if I am wrong with this - it might be the case that the database links the competitions to the large (or random) ID's it creates, but I am sure this is not the case for competitions in the database.

well, I agree with you, I think this is a way that may reduce problems, but not eliminate them completely. E.G. if two persons make both changes with this system, putting a different number of teams on the same competition? You will have any problem if this competition is inactive, but you will have sure problem if at least one of the files in the editor data contain a rule for this competition, because the game could not find the requested number of teams..

And yes, in the files with competition rules already done, if you want to pass to this way, you need to re-link the rules maded to the right competition again (if it is a competiton you created) because the unique ID will be different to the previous. And also it will be better to remove, from the file containing the competition rules (putted in the data editor), the old created competition also, otherwise is almost useless to do this work..