google-deepmind / google-deepmind/mctx
Guidance on num_simulations, max_depth, and large-branching setups for MAPF in MCTX
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Description
Hi—thanks for the fantastic library!
I’m using MCTX (Gumbel MuZero search) for multi-agent path finding on grids. Each agent has 5 actions (UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT/STAY), so the joint action space grows as $5^N$:
* 2 agents → 25 actions
* 3 agents → 125 actions
* 4 agents → 625 actions
I don’t have a policy-value network yet; I’m using GMZ as a planner with uniform priors and either `value=0` or a light heuristic. Horizons can be long on large maps.
**Current settings**
* `num_simulations`: 10k–20k
* `max_depth`: 15–30
* `max_num_considered_actions`: 125
**Observation**
Despite the large simulation budget, plans are often suboptimal compared to a human baseline.
**Questions**
1. Any recommended rules of thumb for choosing `num_simulations` vs. `max_depth` as the branching factor explodes?
2. For joint action spaces, guidance on `max_num_considered_actions` (consider-all vs. subsample)?
3. Suggested `qtransform` settings (e.g., `value_scale`, `maxvisit_init`, `use_mixed_value`, `rescale_values`) when values are zero/heuristic rather than learned?
4. With uniform priors, should I keep a nonzero `gumbel_scale` to break ties, or is a deterministic setting preferable here?
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