The aim cloud goes quiet, and a mistimed flick falls short of the line

Hidden behind TUNE.aimCloud rather than deleted: the reading it gives — how
much width the swipe is buying, before the ball leaves — is the only teacher
the gesture has, and the panel can flip it back live for the next look at it.

And "a little harder to hit the out" is a number: flickReach 0.62 -> 0.52,
which halves the worst-case rate from about 15% to about 7%, with the test
tightened so it cannot drift back. The shape is untouched — a perfect flick
still never sails, a badly timed full swipe still can — but a mistimed one now
lands nearer the middle than the line, which is the only half of that trade a
player who cannot see his own timing can do anything about.

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

PROJECT.md

@@ -502,6 +502,13 @@ swayOf` reads the swipe's length as a continuous 0..1 (`TUNE.flickMin`..`flickFu
 the SERVE already did, and `doHit` spends that instead of `ax`. Keys have no length, so they keep
 the full lane, and the AI's aim (no `mag`) is untouched.
 
+**...and the out was tightened once more** (2026-08-18, *"make it a little harder to hit the out"*):
+`flickReach` 0.62 -> 0.52, halving the worst-case rate from ~15% to ~7% and pinned by the test. The
+shape is unchanged — a perfect flick still never sails, a badly timed full swipe still can — but a
+mistimed one now lands NEARER THE MIDDLE rather than nearer the line, which is the only half of that
+trade a player who cannot see his own timing can do anything about. **`flickReach` is the out dial**;
+`aimError` is shared with the opponent's returns and with every aimed shot in the gore modes.
+
 **This is also what hands the OUT back to the player.** Oliver: *"the number one reason i die is
 that i myself keep firing balls into the out."* Going out was never his choice — every aimed shot
 took the FULL width and then `err()` on top, so the dice decided. Width follows the swipe now, so
@@ -540,7 +547,10 @@ timing can keep in. Three things were learned making it read, all of them the ha
   obvious ramp showed nothing across the whole safe half of its range. The cool end carries its
   contrast in LIGHTNESS, which is what makes it read on grass, clay and slab alike.
 The threshold is not a flip: the colour is already gold before you reach it, so "too hard" is
-something you watch coming. Only inside the window where a release would still BE a flick (`FLICK_MS`/`TUNE.flickMin`, the same
+something you watch coming. **It is OFF as of its first playtest** (*"hide the indicator for now"*)
+— `TUNE.aimCloud` gates the whole block and the tuning panel can flip it back live. Kept rather than
+deleted: it is the only thing that shows the gesture's strength before the ball leaves, and the
+lesson it teaches has no other teacher. Only inside the window where a release would still BE a flick (`FLICK_MS`/`TUNE.flickMin`, the same
 gate `endTouch` uses) — past that the gesture is a run and a target hanging off it would be a lie.
 Rally modes only (`rallyFeel`); gore's flick free-aims at a body, not at a lane. The placement ring
 turns `UI.bad` when the shot really is out, so the two rings together ARE the lesson: what you asked