Welcome, Jim!  A general advice note to start you off:  If you see James T at Cincinnati and Steve T at Columbia doing it, you probably should too.  Anyone else, you might ask here first.  Some of the rest of us have "no so great" ideas that look fun at the time.  See: historical team records, for how that played out

Thank Allan, and thanks for the tip Kevin. I do have some beginner questions (sorry if they've been answered before):

- So I've setup my starting lineups for the first three matches, but I'm wondering: how do other players get subbed in? Do you have to assign multiple players from a given position to a given zone?

- Do player skills automatically increase over time as they get playing time (whether or not you give them coaching points)?

Sorry, more questions... this time about recruiting...

- How many recruiting sessions are there per season? 

- How long does it take to get thru each of the three recruiting steps?

- When can you start playing your new recruits? The following season? 

- Can players transfer between teams?

Hi Jim, 

The only subs in TMVL is the Libero for Middle Blockers. Apart from one situation I mention below, whenever a MB would be on the back row the L plays in his place. When the L would rotate to the front row the MB comes back on and the MB that is rotating to the back row goes off and is replaced by the L 

The exception is that your L can only serve for one of your MBs (bottom of the orders if you choose to) and so the other MB will be In the back row. This is the only time a MB is back row in TMVL.

Skills increase with CP as you know. Players earn XP from playing sets. A freshman gets 1 XP per set played, a Sophomore gets 1 XP per 3 sets and a junior 1 per 5 sets. XP is used to increase skills at the end of the season but no more than once per skill.

Recruiting: each step takes 1 session. The first session that players get committed is session 3. Maximum of 4 recruits this way.

New recruits start next season as Freshmen.

There are no transfers between teams (yet)

Kevin says if you see me or James doing it then you should too. James once got 4 5* recruits in one season. Me? I'm rubbish at recruiting so don't look at what I do.

Re: MB/L. I didn't make it very clear. The only time the L isn't on court is when one or both of your MBs are serving (if your L is a weak server you don't have to pick a MB for him to serve for).

Just to clarify on one of Steve's points on raising the skill levels of players.  A freshman can be raised 3 times in a season, which includes the XP raise at season end.  A sophomore only twice and a junior only once.  So a player can only increase 6 levels through their college career.  In assigning CP throughout the season, leave room for the XP level raise at the end if you think you will have enough.  The little pie next to each skill indicates the increases possible.

In my experience a player playing 2 games a session will get enough XP to raise 5-6 skills for a freshman, 2 for a sophomore and just 1 for a junior. (Depending on their starting level of course)

There are only 12 sessions in a season.  For OH's who have 6 skills, you need to start coaching Freshman OH from session 1 and in every session if you want to max them out and have them play 60-70 sets.

Steve dropping a bomb with the transfers between teams hint

Any truth in this ??

Simply don't worry too much - TVML is much more "forgiving" than similar games: errors aren't too expensive here.

Just take James' advice on the training. Everything else is a "minor" detail.

I have no knowledge of trading between teams ever happening. Does it even happen in college sports?

Some college sports, mainly college basketball and football, but also women's volleyball (and to a lesser extent men's)...have what is called a Transfer Portal.

As a player you can put your name in "the portal".  Teams and coaches don't do it.  The player controls it (though a coach may be telling you as a player "look, you are not in our plans for next season").

College sports never allowed players to "earn money" until recently.  All you received (if you are REALLY good) is a full ride (you don't pay for food, housing, or tuition).  But this is only for the really top players in the sports that are on TV.

Recently college sports added NIL - Name, Image, and Likeness.

Basically as a player  you can get paid by people/sponsors typically through promotional type sponsorships (go do a commercial for a car company). 

Effectively in college basketball recently a player could get 750,000 or 1 million by leaving his current team and going to another team.

So that's the current reality.  Players leave colleges after any of their freshman, sophomore, or junior years for another team.

If someone wants to write up an NIL/Transfer Portal type design I'd be open to hearing it (likely RPs have to be involved) but I currently don't have any great ideas on how that would work.

Imagine losing your A+ setter to the Transfer Portal and  a rival?  It doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

Jim, worth paying attention to the rules on Fit - your decisions this session will have ramifications for the rest of the season.  There's no consensus on what's the best approach (although Kevin is right that you won't go far wrong learning from Steve and James). There's a thread from last season I'll bump to the top for you.

So in Session 1 I put CP points towards some of my players but I didn't assign any Fit points. Now I have players with Fit ratings of -1. I assume this is not good? How low can Fit ratings go? Conversely, how high can Fit ratings go? What's the ideal range to be in?

Fit has no bottom limit and a maximum of +1.

Each level of FIT is worth 5.5 points on your players' ratings.

You really want at least your T7 players on FIT +1 if possible. It's not often a team will win with a 5 points per man deficit. Take a look at Kevin's BUM posts if you haven't already.