fDraft

fDraft is an engine to make optimal fantasy picks to maximize the amount of fantasy points for a team.

Engine Control

fDraft communicates through standard input. Commands that accept arguments are split using ;.

Before any commands can be run, with the exception of exit, a configuration file must be loaded into the engine using the load_draft_config command. After a configuration file has been loaded, the engine requires the player pool to be loaded with load_player_pool. After that, the engine is ready to start calculating picks.

Command	Description
think	Returns the player the engine thinks is the optimal pick in the current draft state.
pick;[player_name]	Adds the player to the roster of the team currently picking.
undo	Resets the draft state to the previous pick.
load_config;[filename]	loads a draft config. Resets draft state to start.
load_players;[filename]	sets the draft pool. Resets draft state to start.
set_think_time;[seconds]	sets the amount of time the engine will think (in seconds).
state	Prints current pick number, drafting team, and engine think time.
history	Prints out all the picks that were made so far.
roster;[team_id]	Shows roster slots and summation of fantasy points for team with team_id.
available;[position];lim	Shows up to lim available players at a position.
bench;[player_name]	Adds player to the roster without counting points toward total.
give_pick;[pick_num];[team_id]	Assigns pick_num to the team with team_id. Can be used to handle trades.
load:[filename]	loads and resumes draft that was previously started
save;[filename]	saves draft
sim	Engine makes every pick for the remainder of the draft.
exit	Exit out of the engine.

Configuration

Player Pool

Players are read from a csv file. Each row is required to have a name, position, and projected points field. There is no header row.

Draft Configuration

The parameters for the draft are set by a configuration file that gets loaded by the engine via a command. The configuration file is a libconfig file that has the following shape:

number_of_teams = 12;
slots = (
    { 
        name = "QB";
        number_required = 1;
    },
    { 
        name = "RB";
        number_required = 2;
    },
    { 
        name = "WR";
        number_required = 2;
    },
    { 
        name = "TE";
        number_required = 1;
    },
    { 
        name = "FLEX";
        number_required = 2;
        flex_slots = ["RB", "WR", "TE"];
    },
);

'Slots' are simply positions that need to be filled up to constitute a complete roster. You specify the name of the slot (the position) and the number of required players at that position. There is a special type of slot that allows players from multiple positions to fill it. In the above example, this special slot is called "FLEX". This slot is differentiated by defining an flex_slots property, which defines the other slot positions the slot can fill. Each name given in the options property must match one of the names of the other defined slots. Also, flex slots must be defined after all the 'real' slots, as the config parser reads the slots from top to bottom and the flex_slots must reference defined slots.

Installation

From the root directory of this project: make.