VelocityNavigator

[3.0.0] — 2026-04-10

✨ New Features

• Initial Join Balancing — Players are now load-balanced the moment they connect to the proxy, not just when they run /lobby. Configurable via balance_initial_join in navigator.toml.
• Developer API — Third-party plugins can now hook into VelocityNavigator via NavigatorAPI and NavigatorAPIProvider. Preview routes, inspect server health, and read routing config programmatically.
• Three Routing Modes — Choose between least_players, round_robin, and random selection algorithms.
• Contextual Routing — Route players to game-specific lobbies (e.g., BedWars lobby) based on which server they are leaving.
• Self-Documenting Config — The generated navigator.toml now includes rich inline comments explaining every setting and routing mode, with links to full documentation.

🏥 Reliability

• Async Health Checks — Ping candidate lobbies before routing to ensure they are alive. Configurable timeout and caching.
• Ping Coalescing — Multiple simultaneous /lobby requests share the same CompletableFuture ping, preventing network storms on high-traffic proxies.
• Pre-Execution Cooldown Locking — The anti-spam cooldown is applied before command execution begins, preventing macro-based abuse from bypassing the lock.
• Graceful Failover — If all contextual lobbies are offline, the plugin falls back to the default lobby pool instead of showing an error (configurable).

📊 Telemetry & Updates

• bStats Integration — Anonymous usage telemetry via bStats (plugin ID: 28341).
• Modrinth Update Checker — Automatic version checking during startup with configurable release channel (release, beta, alpha).

🛠 Admin Tools

• /vn reload — Hot-reload navigator.toml without restarting the proxy.
• /vn status — View runtime status (version, routing mode, health checks, bStats, update checker).
• /vn version — Check installed vs. latest version.
• /vn debug player <name> — Preview the routing decision for a specific player.
• /vn debug server <name> — Inspect a server's real-time health snapshot.
• Full tab-completion for all admin commands.

🔧 Configuration

• Automatic Migration — Seamless migration from v1/v2 configs with backup generation.
• Field-Level Validation — Invalid config values are corrected with warnings, never crashes.
• MiniMessage Support — All player-facing messages support MiniMessage rich text formatting.