v1.3.7

This update introduces a fully playable Snooker bot, improves bot planning and shot selection, and adds more options for adjusting difficulty and physics accuracy.

New Features

• Added a fully playable Snooker bot!

  • The bot aims to maximize its score while considering the difficulty of future shots.
  • Defensive shot searches are triggered when attacking options are poor or when a snooker is needed to win.

• Added search depth 2 for bot players.

  • The bot can now simulate potential follow-up shots to make better decisions about cue-ball positioning.
  • This requires additional computation but is now practical thanks to performance optimizations introduced in previous updates.

• Added adjustable shot-force accuracy for bot players.

  • Random variation can be applied to the bot's shot force, allowing players to adjust its difficulty.
  • Higher accuracy makes the bot more consistent, while lower accuracy introduces more imperfections.

• Added an adjustable collision detection accuracy setting.

  • Controls how many nearby balls the physics engine checks for potential collisions.
  • Higher settings reduce the risk of missed collisions, especially when balls are tightly packed together, as in Snooker, but slightly increase computational load.
  • Lower settings are generally sufficient for normal gameplay and offer better performance.

Bot Improvements

• Improved shot evaluation to favor more reasonable cue-ball positioning.

  • Added penalties for simulated shots involving excessive cue-ball collisions, as complex trajectories are less predictable.
  • Increased penalties for cue-ball collisions with pocket edges, where small inaccuracies can increase the risk of scratching.
  • Added gradual penalties for cue-ball positions near cushions, where subsequent shots may be more difficult.
  • These adjustments reduce the estimated value of risky follow-up opportunities without completely discouraging difficult or necessary shots, such as breaking up ball clusters.

• Improved the bot's simulation and evaluation scheduler to reduce unexpected deadlocks and interruptions.

Technical Improvements

• Added direct position updates using entity NBT as an alternative to teleportation-based ball movement.

  • Simplifies movement calculations, improves positioning accuracy, and reduces the number of commands needed to update ball positions.
  • In testing, average motion load decreased by 44.8%, making the new method approximately 1.8× faster.
  • However, the original teleportation method truncates small displacements, leaving a slight separation between balls. The more precise NBT method reduces this separation, potentially increasing the likelihood of balls clipping through each other due to numerical errors.
  • This feature is disabled by default. To enable it, run /function app:settings/pool/motion/use_nbt.

• For Minecraft 1.17+, Snooker now uses marker entities instead of area effect clouds where applicable.

Other Changes

• Removed Simulate ASAP mode.

  • Distributing simulations across multiple game ticks now provides a more practical way to manage computational load.
  • Maintaining a separate ASAP simulation path is no longer worthwhile, especially with the introduction of more advanced planning.

• Removed the option to choose between 5 and 10 force/spin combinations per shot and the default is set to 10 combinations, simplifying bot configuration.