The finishing shot is spent, and the wound skins come back

"one-shot is bad - way too easy - also we're losing all the nice gore
animation sprites" and "I noticed the last kill of a game can carry to the
spawn of a new zombie of the next round".

drillOneShot is off. The second half of that note is the part worth
remembering: a 1 hp body never passes through a wound stage, so every skin in
ZWOUND — arm off, ribs out, still walking — is skipped and the roster's best
art never renders at all. Kept as a switch, never a default.

The carry-over was a real unfairness, not a curiosity. A ball keeps pace
through a kill and travels UP-COURT, which is exactly where the next batch is
born — so the shot that finished your round flew on into bodies that did not
exist when you took it, and faulted you on a round you had not been shown
yet. The shot that ends a round is spent now, and drillCaught does the same
since it also refills the court up-court. Pierce within a batch is untouched:
that is honest occlusion you could have read, this was not.

Verified with real aimed serves through a whole round: round banks, ball goes
inactive, the next batch walks on with 0 faults and a clean sequence, and the
gang carries roster HP again (brute 5, ball boy 3).

33 tests, 15 seeds clean.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/config.js

@@ -374,12 +374,13 @@ export const TUNE = {
                          // brings it back. Past 3 the puzzle stops being readable.
   drillEaterSpeed: 1.15,// they walk a touch faster than the batch: the batch is a list, this is a threat
   drillRampT: 210,  // s to go from the bottom of every curve above to the top
-  // TESTING KNOB, currently ON. Every body in the drill dies to one splat-quality hit, whatever the
-  // roster says it should soak. Flip to 0 for the real thing — and note that this is not purely a
-  // convenience: the roster's HP is what makes the called ORDER matter (a roller is seven serves, so
-  // being told to take it third means starting on it first), and one-shot bodies delete that whole
-  // layer. Decide it on feel rather than leaving it on by drift.
-  drillOneShot: 1,  // >= 0.5: batch bodies AND eaters all drop to 1 hp
+  // TESTING KNOB, and it is OFF again after one playtest: "one-shot is bad - way too easy - also
+  // we're losing all the nice gore animation sprites". Both halves matter and the second is the one
+  // that is easy to miss — a 1 hp body never passes through any of its WOUND STAGES, so every skin
+  // in ZWOUND (arm off, ribs out, still walking) is skipped entirely and the roster's best art never
+  // renders. The HP is also what makes the called ORDER matter: a roller is seven serves, so being
+  // told to take it third means starting on it first. Left here as a switch, not a default.
+  drillOneShot: 0,  // >= 0.5: batch bodies AND eaters all drop to 1 hp
   drillCaughtBack: 45, // s of ramp handed back when one reaches you. A real setback, not a reset
   fps: 60,          // frame cap — 30 halves battery/heat but Oliver felt it; smoothness wins (0 = uncapped)
   lowPower: 1,      // >= 0.5 caps RES at 3 (−44% of pixels painted per frame) — the battery saver,

src/drill.js

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 // render.js reads DRILL_COLS and draws.
 
 import { TUNE } from './config.js';
-import { G } from './state.js';
+import { G, ball } from './state.js';
 import { zombies, spawnZombie } from './zombies.js';
 import { voice } from './audio.js';
 
@@ -176,6 +176,12 @@ export function drillKill(zb) {
     if (d.step >= d.seq.length) {            // round complete — and the next one is already here
       d.rounds++;
       d.msg = { text: 'GOOD', t: 0.9 };
+      // THE SHOT THAT ENDS A ROUND IS SPENT. A ball keeps pace through a kill (TUNE.zPierce) and it
+      // is travelling UP-COURT — which is exactly where the next batch is about to be born. So the
+      // ball that finished your round flew on into bodies that did not exist when you took the shot
+      // and faulted you on a round you had not been shown yet. Pierce WITHIN a batch stays: that is
+      // honest occlusion you could have read. This is not.
+      ball.active = false;
       newRound(d);
     }
     return;
@@ -206,6 +212,7 @@ export function drillCaught(text = 'CAUGHT') {
   voice('game_opponent', 0.1);
   d.msg = { text, t: 1.8, bad: true };
   zombies.length = 0;
+  ball.active = false;   // same reason as the round-complete case: the court refills up-court
   d.seq = []; d.step = 0; d.faults = 0; d.spawnT = 0;
   d.t = Math.max(0, d.t - TUNE.drillCaughtBack);  // ...and the ramp backs off a little
 }