Using Squad Numbers in Career Mode

I have seen a number of posted highlights of SWOS games online which show players with shirt numbers greater than 16. This got me doing some experiments with using squad numbers in career mode which have raised a few thoughts and observations which I would like to share.

Firstly, my observations which I would welcome any comments on:

1. When you change a player from the substitutes or reserves etc. into the playing team that player takes over the number of the team member replaced.

2. Similarly, moving players to be substitutes has the same effect.

3. The reserves appear to all have shirt number 16 as default.

4. Given the above, it is not difficult to have duplicate numbers, particularly in the substitutes.

5. However, when substituting in a match, players retain their numbers.

6. It is possible to edit shirt numbers using SWoES for team players and substitutes in TEAM.nnn files but not .CAR files.

The above set me thinking and therefore I resurrected an old DOS program I wrote to update .CAR files which I have now enhanced. I have called this new program SWOSCARE and it can do the following:

1. Change names, shirt (squad) numbers and positions for any player.

2. Set maximum skill levels and values for any player.

3. Clear match bans and injuries for any player.

3. Swap any player with another keeping the same squad numbers.

I have started testing this program alongside SWOS++ from SWOS Total Pack 09 running under DOSBox. It seems to work well, allowing you to prepare for a match in SWOS, save the career, edit and save in SWOSCARE, reload the career and start the match.

If anyone is interested I can let them have a copy of SWOSCARE to try - it would be a help with my testing! At the moment I am using SWOSCARE under Windows XP but maybe someone can get it working under DOSBox.

Hmmm, I remember experimenting with shirt numbers above 16 and noticed that it would result in weird icons in the game, instead of the desired numbers.
How did you avoid that?

No weird icons so far in my testing. I am basing my numbers on a real squad up to 30 and these show up OK

What sort of weird did you get and how did you change them from 1 - 16?

Weird icons on Amiga version IIRC. From trying it many years ago, having used SWOES to set squad numbers higher than 16.
For this reason I always stick to 1-16.

Was that weird icons above the players in a match or on the team sheet screen?

Both iirc; Amiga version just doesn t understand any numbers above 16. Was a long time ago that I tried it though. Memory might be hazy

There is a patch, called SWOS ++ from Zlatko Karakas, in Pc version where players may have numbers above 16.
In Amiga version, you can not have shirt number above 16.

I have been using SWOS++ for most of my testing of using squad numbers but when I revert to using SWOS 96/97, the funny icons appear for all numbers above 16.

I was not aware that SWOS++ included this. What other improvements, apart from the extra menu items, does SWOS++ contain?