Here we answer various questions regarding the 2D simulator and Helios code base.

Is there something missing? Something you want to add? Email us, and we'll add it.

• Are there any example agents I can test my agent against? Yes, you can play against some binaries from the 2011 competiton (binaries from the 2012 competition have not been released yet). You will find them in the /projects/cs344M.pstone/2d/opponents/ directory. These binaries have all been configured to run on UTCS. The unaltered set of RoboCup 2011 released binaries are located at http://www.socsim.robocup.org/files/2D/binary/RoboCup2011/.. To see how the different teams did during the tournament you can check the RoboCup 2011 2D simulation league results page.
  General instructions for running a binary:
  • Most binaries will only work on a 64-bit machine so make sure you are running on a 64-bit machine. To check this run the following command and make sure it returns a value of 64.

         % getconf LONG_BIT
    

    If you're not on a 64-bit machine you can get a list of 64-bit machines to ssh into and run a team on with the following command

         % cshosts pub64
    

  • You can run any of the teams from within their agent directory with the following command:

         % ./start.sh
    

    If you are running a server on a remote machine you will also need to specify the name of the machine the server is running on.

         % ./start.sh remote_machine_name
    

  • Important: Some of the teams don't kill themselves when the server is shutdown meaning that you need to manually kill the team after running it. This is true of the daina team and possibly others. For these teams you need to manually kill their agent processes when you're finished running them.

         % ./kill
    

• Is there a way to graphically edit formation in the Helios code base? Yes, you can use the fedit2 tool. It is located in the /projects/cs344M.pstone/2d/fedit2-0.0.0/src directory.

       % cd /projects/cs344M.pstone/2d/fedit2-0.0.0/src
       % ./fedit2
  

  We hope to add more information about how to use this tool soon.
• How can I add files to the Helios codebase? You can do this by adding files to the src/Makefile.am file which will later generate an appropriate Makefile through automake (just typing 'make' as usual after editing Makefile.am will handle everything).
• Is there a way to freeze the current frame when playing games? Yes, you can use the the third party monitor soccerwindow2. This monitor also adds other useful debugging tools such as visualizations of formations. In order to use the soccerwindow2 monitor you need to first add the following to your ~/.bashrc file (note you will need to open a new terminal after doing this for your change to take effect).

       export PATH=/projects/cs344M.pstone/2d:$PATH
  

  To run soccerwindow2 with the server do the following

       % rcsocwin2 
  

  or to just run the monitor by itself

       % soccerwindow2