Continuing from my previous entry, the past week has brought me further along with the new simulator.

• Added functionality for the referee to spot "turbulence" in the box for instance on corners. He may now give a freekick to the defending team if he feels the attacking team is a little unfair to the goalie etc. The "harder" your team decides to tackle, the more likely they will commit a foul here.
• Own-goals may now occur from certain failed interceptions in certain set pieces. Innocent deflections can sometimes go horribly wrong.
• Corners may now be intercepted with clearance leading to either a new corner or a throw-in. Currently, a corner could only be deflected to a new corner by the goalie, but now defending players may also do so.
• Goalkeepers can now be injured! Watch out, and keep a goalie on the bench, just in case!
• Goals, goals on penalties and owngoals now have different icons on the match-report (in the player-listing)
• New implementation of off-side traps, normal-offside and linesmen in general. There is now a higher benefit from a high off-side team-stat.
• The offside stat is used defensively only for checking if a team managed to set someone offside or not, it is NOT used for getting better to avoid being set off-side. This is handeled by the players perception-stat.
• You can also expect a greater penalty if you decide to play with an off-side trap , but have a poor offside-stat for your team. There will be clues in your match-reports if your attempts to set players off-side fail...Be observant!
• There is now an added bonus for attackers about to finish on goal if there are suspended defenders on the opponent team. (Meaning it will be easier to get into a better finishing position even if you play with "shoot on sight") So, yes , finally, for all those asking for it the last 2 years, changes have been made here to allow the penalty work both offensively and defensively after players have been sent off.

• A long run by a player that used to always end up with a shot in the end, may now end up with making a pass to a team-mate, IF another teammate has followed the run (less likely with formations having just 1 attacker) and he has positioned himself correctly. The possible followup-shot from his teammate has a greater chance to go in than if he made the shot himself, as the goalie is fairly chance-less if the attackers come in two against just him..
• Defenders are now a bit better at defending against crosses, as they will normally be better positioned than assumed in the previous simulator. They are also better positioned when defending against long passes in general, not just crosses.
• Better and more detailed heading-duels. Watch out for head-injuries here though. One can say here that the heading-stat has increased a tad more in importance when it comes to these duels.
• Better and more detailed tackling-duels. Expect some more variations on the outcome of tackles. In tackle-situations, the simulator will always make use of speed (timing) , tackling (the actual tackle) and perception (in preparation before the tackle, and to assist with the timing).
• Players will now make more intelligent decisions by being more aware of their surroundings, but also in accordance with tactics and own skills.
• The Goalkeepers behavior when in control of the ball has been completely rewritten. That said, this has up until now never been shown in the match-report, but from now on, these are more likely to be simulated in full and commented upon. This will mean the goalies passing-stat increases in practical and visible importance. We might also see some goalkeepers getting their first assists.
• More logic has been implemented in the decision-making for players when it comes to finding a logical pass-target. It is very hard to explain the details here, but it involves the players position, his team-mates position, the opponents position, his own skills, and a lot of weight has been placed on the tactical settings. Both pressure and playstyle is taken into consideration here, with every single pass of the ball, guiding the player to what he should try to do. So, more long passes if you are playing long-ball, more forward passing if the pressure is attacking, more sideways and even backward passes if playing continental and defensive etc etc.
• A lot of improvements all over the place! With time to focus on just the simulator, I have picked up on dozens of smaller annoyances and improved them.
• Expect longer match-reports and more details from the mtach. More scenarios are being simulated than before. The simulator source-code has, so far, grown from 7262 lines to 9393, so quite a bit of logic has been added! This will, not surprisingly, cause most matches to take a bit longer to simulate. Just how much extra time a full tick will take is unknown. Also, I am not done yet, so it will keep on increasing, and the simulator will probably hit the 10.000 line marker before I am done with it.

• Goalies can be expected to lose slightly more fitness in matches. ("Slightly" is a bit vague, but as fitness is lost in whole points, a more accurate deleetcodeion should be "There is now a 15% bigger chance a goalie will lose a point of fitness in a friendly")
• INJURY-HEALING change:
• - If a players fitness is BELOW 75, there is a chance resting will not help him regain fitness. A good physio will give a small bonus chance, an excellent one will give a bigger bonus etc. On average, with a good Physio, you can expect him to regain his resting-points 1 out of 3 trainings. This means that serious injuries will take longer to heal and have a bigger impact in the game. One can argue it increases the value of the Stamina-stat too :)
• - The instant-healing ability of your medical center has been limited to light injuries only, and they can only help if the fitness of the player is between 70 and 80.
• Counter-attacking has been implemented as a new team-stat. This will mean another stat you have to distribute your training-gains towards. Gains have not ben increased, to it will mean slightly lower teamstats all over unless you chose to ignore this one. We do not recommend ignoring it.
• Counter-attacking has been implemented as a new tactical pressure-setting.
• Counter-attacks are now properly simulated, goodie!
• The simulator has passed the 10.000 lines of code marker...jeeess
• The first test-matches have been played! Yay!