Requirements
All owners must own a copy of Sierra's Front Page Sports: Football Pro '96 **with the V1.1 patch installed**. If you do not have the patch contact a commish to receive it. The game must be installed into the path /Sierra/Fbpro96. Coaches will also need a program to zip and unzip files for uploading and downloading.

League Creation
All owners must create a sub-directory called INFL98, within the /Sierra/Fbpro96 subdirectly. The league files will be regularly uploaded to the INFL98 website as INFLxxp#.zip, where xx stands for the current week of play and p stands for preliminary and # stands for which set (ex. INFL06p1.zip is the first set of preliminary files for week 6). The final set of league files that are used for game simming will appear as INFLxxf.zip (f stands for final).

League Schedule
Sunday - Preliminary league files which are updated with the results of the previous weeks games will be uploaded to the site. Site will also be updated with all information for previous weeks games.

Thursday 8:00pm (EST) - Roster moves deadline. All roster moves, FA requests and trades must be mailed into the Roster Moves Commish (Andre Galvan) by this time. If it is required that you must release a player to complete an FA pickup or trade then make sure you notify the Roster Moves Commish (Andre Galvan) which player you want released. Failure to do so will result in the request on being processed till the following week.

Thursday sometime after 8:00pm (EST) - Rosters will be posted on the website for the owners to review. If you notice any mistakes report them to the Roster Moves Commish (Andre Galvan) ASAP.

Friday 4:00 (EST) - Deadline for all coaches to send in there PPP's. These are to be mailed to the Files Commish (Mark Frail). If an owners PPP's are not received before the deadline then his/her team will play that weeks games with the newstock PPP (located on league files page). If you wish to use the previous weeks PPP's you need to notify the Files Commish (Mark Frail) of this.

Friday 8:00pm (EST) - Files Commish (Mark Frail) will send out the IN file and PPP's to the home and away coach for gameplay. Before you start the game you need to e-mail the away coach and the Files Commish (Mark Frail).

Saturday 11:00pm (EST) - Deadline for home coach to have simmed game and sent results to away coach and the Files Commish (Mark Frail).

Game Play
a) Each Friday (after the Thursday 9:00pm EST deadline) the Roster Moves Commish will e-mail the coaches the final league files to use (INFLxxf.zip) and the Files Commish will send the GAMExxyy.in files to use in your game called CWKxxIN.zip. If you are a home team that week then follow these steps to play your game:
Delete all files in your /Sierra/Fbpro96/INFL98 directory.
Put INFLxxf.zip (final file sent Friday) in that directory and unzip it. Then, unzip the specific .in zip for your game into this directory (/Sierra/Fbpro96/). The CWKxxIN.zip file will contain all the .in files for that week's games. Check the league schedule and count down from the top to determine which .in file is the correct one for your game. For example, if it is the first week of the season and your matchup is the 4th from the top on the league schedule, then your .in file would be Game0104.in. Make sure it is the onle .in file in the /Sierra/Fbpro96 directory before simming the game. Also ensure there is no file in the /Sierra/Fbpro96 directory called play.log.
You MUST e-mail your opponent that you are about to sim the game. Make sure you are ready to run the league game uniterrupted as you will not be able to stop the game for any reason once it is started. This is very important as any stops in the play will be recorded on the log file and will raise suspicion about the fairness of the game you ran. Games should be simmed and results sent within 2 1/2 hours after you notify your opponent that you started simming the game.
There should be a text file within the unzipped PPP that tells your the name of the directory into which to the PPP's of your opponent. This directory wills always be a subdirectory of /Sierra/Fbpro96/ and should have as its name the abbreviation of the team that uploaded it. For example, Miami team files would go in /Sierra/Fbpro96/INFL98/Mia and the file would be called Cmia07.zip for Miami's week 7 PPP's. If you wish to use plays that you use in another league, you may include a different directory in your text file but we strongly encourage all owners to keep their plays in a special INFL98 directory to avoid confusion.
Create such a directory if necessary, copy the zip file into it and unzip it (or copy all of the previously unzipped files into that directory). The text file should explain what directory to unzip the PPP's in as well as tell you which profiles and gameplans to use for your opponent in each half.
If you are scheduled to play a home or away game and the other team is unowned, you will use the NEWSTOCK.zip file found on the website and unzip it into the /Sierra/Fbpro96/NewStock directory.
Copy the appropriate GAMExxyy.in file to your /Sierra/Fbpro96 directory and then start the program with the following command:

hike -xp -l -nointro (This is hike -xp -lower case L (not a #1) -nointro)

You must use lower case letters for this command. You can use additional command line switches if you desire, but the xp switch MUST be the first command line parameter used.

PLEASE BE SURE THAT YOU USE THE CORRECT GAMExxyy.in FILE.

NOTE: If you are playing a game and quit (and save) in progress, you must ues the command line options -xp -l when you restart the program and to resume playing the game in order to generate the GAMExxyy.out file. If you have difficulties causing a GAMExxyy.out file to form, change the opening command line to: hike -xp - l gamexxyy.out (where xx equals the week number and yy equals the game number).

When setting up the game, please not that you are not allowed to control players, call audibles, or call your own plays. The game must be as Computer vs Computer. All games shall be played profile vs profile. This means that when you set up to run the game, BOTH teams must be set at computer controlled. Keyboard and/or Joystick control is not allowed in this league. It's not enough to set it to keyboard control and allow the profile to call the plays, becaues this out the computer called audibles for the home team while the away tam still must endure it. This is a fact of playing profile vs profile that ALL teams must live with equally. A log file in which one team has not called any audibles will be a dead giveaway that the home team owner either called his own plays or opted to keyboard control and allowed the computer to call his own plays without the audible. A log file with only one kind of audible being called more than 15 times is also a dead giveaway. If caught, you will be banished as a CHEAT!
You MUST view the stats at half-time (team and both offense and defense) and again at the end of the game. This ensures that the program will include the stats in the play.log file. This also ensures that the game was not quick simmed.

Sending Results:
After the game has been been completed, the program will create a Gamexxyy.out file and Play.log file in your /Sierra/Fbpro96 directory. Rename the Play.log file to [email protected],where home is the home team's abbreviatoin and the away is the away team's abbreviation (e.g. [email protected]). The game will also create a highlights file in your Tapes/Game directory. This file will be called INFL98.xxx (xxx=number). If you haven't deleted the highlights from the previous week then the correct INFL98.xxx file will be the highest numbered file. Please check the timestamp to make sure you send the right one. Don't view the highlights until you send them to the Files Commish and the away coach. Viewing them causes the highlights file to disappear. You must zip these three (3) files into a file called [email protected] (e.g. [email protected]) and e-mail this file to the Files Commish and the away coach before the 11:00pm EST deadline on Saturday. Please show some consideration to the away coach and send the results as soon as possible. You can make additional highlights during the game (if you want) by hitting instant replay after great plays are made by either team. Simple save the highlights after viewing it (it's up to you whether you want to include additional highlights in the results you send).
If the HOME coach does not send in results (the [email protected] file) by 11:00pm EST on Saturday. the Files Commish will sim the game using NewStock offense and the home teams defense for the home team and the regular PPP's for the away team.

Gameplans
a) Each player must create a directory within his /Sierra/Fbpro96/INFL98 directory in which to store his league gameplans, profiles, and plays )the "gameplan directory"). That directory should have as its name the two or three letter abbreviation used in Fbpro96 for that team. (ex: /Sierra/Fbpro96/INFL98/Mia for the Miami team or /Sf for the San Fransicso team).
b) The following rule only applies to the use of Custom Plays.
And player wishing to create gameplans which use Custom Plays must FIRST put ALL the custom plays he wishes to use for each gameplan in his gameplan directory, and THEN he must create his gameplans in his /Sierra/Fbpro96/INFL98/xxx directory.

It is very important that you only create your gameplans AFTER you have ALL of your custom plays into your gameplan directory, and that the only custom plays you use in your gameplan are the custom plays in this directory. Playbooks must have at least 24 offensive plays and 10 defensive plays.

You should also be sure to create all your gameplans and profiles in your gameplan directory.
c) ALL coaches should then zip all of the plays in their gameplan directory (the text file, gameplans, profiles, and plays) together into a file with the filename Cxxxyy.zip, where xxx stands for the team abbreviation and yy stands for the current week of play. THIS ZIP MAY NOT BE PASSWORDED IN ANY WAY. You may however password your profiles from FPS: Football Pro '96.
d) This zip file must then be sent to the Files Commish in accordance with the above schedule.

Play Design
Click here to view them

Gameplan Design
Offensive Gameplans
Offensive playbooks require 24 unique plays.
Flipped plays DO NOT count as unique plays.
A play may be duplicated once in your playbook providing there is a chance of the go to guy in the play. However, this does not count as a unique play.

Defensive Gameplans
Defensive playbooks require 10 unique plays.
Flipped plays DO NOT count as unique plays.
A play may be duplicated once as long as there are changes in the personnel in the play. However, this does not count as a unique play.

Profile Design
Offensive Profiles
There are no restrictions on percentage weighting of plays called in offensive profiles.
Every play category used in your gameplan must be represented in your profile. In other words, if you have a razzle dazzle pass category, there must be at least one game situation in which the razzle dazzle pass has a chance to be called.
No calling of specific plays is allowed in offensive profiles. Play categories (ie. pass medium random, etc..) only!

Defensive Profiles
There are no restrictions on percentage weighting of plays called for any defensive game situation.
Every play category used in your game plan must be represented in your profile. In other words, if you have a razzle dazlzle pass category, there must be at least one game situation in which razzle dazzle pass pas a chance to be called.
No calling of specific plays is allowed in defensive profiles. Play categories (ie. pass medium, etc..) only!

Miscellaneous PPP Rules
Special Teams Play
Any situation in which a special teams play should be used (ie punt returns, fg's, etc..) requires the use of a special teams play. Regular plays may not be substitued in situations where special teams play is called for (ie punt returns, fg's, etc..).
Offensive Linemen may not be substituted into defensive linemen positions on defensive special teams plays.

Roster Moves
Not decided yet.

Trading
The trade deadline is Thursday at 8:00pm EST.
Trades can only be made between human coaches.
Once a trade agreement is made between two coaches both parties must e-mail the Roster Moves Commish as well as the Files Commish confirming details of the trade. The trade will not be accepted until a conformation from both owners in received. All trades are final once a conformation is received from both owners.
Trades may consist of players and/or current draft picks. Multi-player trades are allowed.
Week 8 is the last week of trading.

Scouting
In the INFL98 there will not be regular PPP scouting. I feel there is too much play copying going around to leave your PPP's on a site or FTP site. So owners will have to scout from logs and highlights. I urge you to contact the last coach who played the coach you play to ask them for helpful information in setting up your offense/defense.

Rookie Draft and Veteran Draft (Free Agent Policy)
Veteran FA Draft
Who is a veteran?

All players 6 years or older are considered veterans. No players 5 years or younger (after the retirements have been processed by the game) are considered veterans. This applies to the age of the player when the season starts. All players 6 years and older will be called veterans in these rules. Veterans are all the players aged 6 years and over.

After the retirements have been processed at the end of the season and prior to the rookie draft, we will be having a 3 round veteran FA draft. After the retirements have been posted, each team will indicate three (3) veterans (players that are 6 years or older) to release to Free Agency. FA draft picks cannot be traded and no trades will be allowed during the FA draft. We have created a very specific order to make the FA draft useful and effective. Trading would only detract from the purpose of having a veteran fa draft. We want to help the weaker teams and allow good teams to ''lure" FA's at the same times. The draft order is very unique, but also very effective at giving weaker teams a shot at getting good FA's and allowing good teams to "lure" back the good FA's. Medicore teams can get great help at the end of the first round and the beginning of the 2nd round. The draft order will be as follows:

Round 1: 30th, 1st, 29th, 2nd, 28th, 3rd, 27th, 4th, 26th, 5th, 25th, 6th, 24th, 7th, 23rd, 8th, 22nd, 9th, 21st, 10th, 20th, 11th, 19th, 12th, 18th, 13th, 17th, 14th, 16th, 15th.

Round 2: Reverse order of rnd 1. (15th, 6th, 14th, 17th, 13th, etc.....)

Round 3: Same order as round 1.

Rookie Draft
After the veteran FA draft is completed, we will hold a rookie draft. The draft will be continue until all teams have finished drafting. The rookie pool for the draft will be generated by the game and Lorne Sundby's Drafty Utility. The rookies will be named in accordance with their counterparts in the NFL draft to make this league as realistic as possible.

Trainging Camp
Training camp will be "capped" at 30% with a minimum of 5%. This means that you cannot train any one attribute to a percentage more than 30% and you must allocate at least 5% to each attribute. Note that his applies to ALL players, punters, and kickers included. All kickers and punters are automatically given an AC of 89.