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BZRobots
Contents
About BZRobots
(Note that the following information applies to the BZRobots in the upcoming BZFlag 3.0 release)
BZRobots is a programmable computer player client that is compatible with the BZFS server. It is designed to be an artificial intelligence training and development tool that operates under the BZFlag platform.
BZRobots requires that you have already configured and are running an instance of BZFS, that allows one or more bots (using the -botsPerIP setting). Also, BZRobots is a "headless" client (i.e. there are no graphics, it is only text-based), so if you want to watch your bots in action, you will also need to join as an observer or player using the BZFlag client.
Quick Start: Building
Linux/OS X
The BZRobots client (and support for C++ bots) will by default as a standard part of the bzflag trunk build. However, if you want to build Python bots, you will need to run ./configure with the option --enable-bzrobots-python (and of course have the necessary dependencies)
Windows
Open the bzrobots solution, then build the bzrobots and testbot projects.
Quick Start: Running
(Note: This quick start assumes that you will be testing bzrobots from within the build directory, have already run 'autogen.sh', 'configure', and 'make' and have not run 'make install')
(Due to the use of libtool, the binary TestRobot.so is in the .libs directory)
# cd bzflag/src/bzrobots # ./bzrobots -team red sobot@localhost .libs/TestRobot.so
Linux/OS X: Python [.py]
# cd bzflag/src/bzrobots # ln -s .libs/bzrobot_pyext.so ./bzrobot_pyext.so # ./bzrobots -team red pybot@localhost ../../bots/python/TestRobot.py
Linux/OS X: LUA [.lua]
# cd bzflag/src/bzrobots # ./bzrobots -team red luabot@localhost ../../bots/lua/bzbot.lua
# cd bzflag # bzrobots.exe -team red dllbot@localhost testbot.dll
Windows: LUA [.lua]
# cd bzflag # bzrobots.exe -team red luabot@localhost bots\lua\bzbot.lua
See Also
BZRobots/API - A list of the methods in the BZRobots API
BZRobots/Ideas - Community suggestions for and enhancements changes for BZRobots
BZRobots/RoboCode_Changes - For those coming from RoboCode, a list of differences between the RoboCode and BZRobots API
BZRobots/History - Some of the history behind BZRobots