OpenTTDLab 0.0.10

Python framework for running reproducible experiments using OpenTTD

OpenTTDLab - Run reproducible experiments using OpenTTD

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OpenTTD is a Python framework for running reproducible experiments using OpenTTD, and extracting results from them. An experiment in OpenTTDLab terms is the combination of:

• Exact version of OpenTTD, any AIs used, and OpenTTDLab itself
• Ranges of values for OpenTTD config settings, command line arguments and random seed

This can be configured/extracted for each experiment in either machine or human readable forms, for use in code or publishing respectively.

OpenTTDLab is based on TrueBrain's OpenTTD Savegame Reader, but it is not affiliated with OpenTTD.

[!NOTE] Work in progress. This README serves as a rough design spec.

Installation

OpenTTDLab is distributed via PyPI, and so can usually be installed using pip.

python -m pip install OpenTTDLab

OenTTDLab itself requires additional binaries:

1. unzip
2. (Linux only) tar
3. (macOS only) 7-zip

The only one of these not likely to already be installed is 7-zip. To install 7-zip on macOS, first install Homebrew, and then use Homebrew to install the p7zip package that contains 7-zip.

brew install p7zip

You do not need to separately download or install OpenTTD (or OpenGFX) in order to use OpenTTDLab. OpenTTDLab handles downloading them, which is the reason OpenTTDLab requires the binaries mentioned above.

Running an experiment

The core function of OpenTTD is the setup_experiment function.

from openttdlab import setup_experiment, save_config

# If necessary, this will download the latest OpenTTD
run_experiment, get_config = setup_experiment()

# Run the experiment and get results. This may take time
results = run_experiment()
print(results)

# The information needed to reproduce the experiment
config = get_config()
print(config)

# Which can be saved to a file and then shared
save_config('my-config.yml', config)

Reproducing an experiment

If you have the config from a previous experiment, you can pass it into setup_experiment to exactly reproduce

from openttdlab import setup_experiment, load_config

# Load the config from file
config = load_config('my-config.yml')

# allow_platform_difference=True will allow experiments from a platform other than the one
# the original experiments were performed on. Otherwise, setup_experiment may error because
# the exact same OpenTTD will not be able to be run on this platform
run_experiment, get_config = setup_experiment(config=config, allow_platform_difference=True)

# Run the experiment and get results
results = run_experiment()
print(results)