How to Improve a Pattern Matcher

Hi, what are some easy ways to improve the standard nano-sized pattern matcher? I've tried everything (that I can think of!) but each change just seems to make the gun worse. Thanks!

Think this way: if there are easy ways to improve, it should be already within every nano-sized pattern matcher.

And, most changes are making things worse simply means you may be already at some local minimum, which is discovered by the predecessors. The "improvements" you easily think of may be already tried by predecessors as well, and the ones that work are already applied.

So, to push the bar further, just go the "hard" way. Record some data of every opponent you need to face, encode some behavior of your gun into genes, and use genetic algorithms to find a way out!