The dead club doubles its staff, and the draw is made where you can see it

Six new opponent families (head coach, stringer, strawberry seller, chair
umpire, spectator, roller man) through the famroll/zsheet route, placed by
hierarchy into an 18-rung ladder; the champion steps up behind them.

THE DRAW: picking the tournament now rolls its own bracket in front of you —
only the final was ever settled — and what lands is what walks on.

Netplay, off Oliver's cellular report: the mid-flight early-decide was missing
its !G.net gate, so the striker judged its own outbound flight and the two
scoreboards drifted a point apart into a court nobody could serve on. The
host's court now rides the room, its scoreboard rides the pretoss stream, and
a called ball rolls to its own halt instead of freezing where the call caught it.

Plus the night court, and somebody in the stand is taking pictures.

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

PROJECT.md

@@ -20,8 +20,9 @@ anything, so if you add a `return` for an awkward deal, check the body still run
 the state-machine contracts that have historically produced the show-stoppers. The Dockerfile runs
 it as a build stage, so a red suite cannot deploy — but finding out from Coolify is the slow way.
 
-Last updated 2026-08-14 (the live 1v1 socket lands: VS A FRIEND on the mode screen, the relay in
-server.py, the receiver-is-judge netcode in src/net.js — phone verdict pending). **Start with "How to work on this", "OPEN — leftovers" and "LATER —
+Last updated 2026-08-15 (the batch below: six new opponent families and an 18-rung ladder, the
+tournament DRAW screen, three netplay fixes off Oliver's cellular report, the night court, and
+camera flashes in the stand). **Start with "How to work on this", "OPEN — leftovers" and "LATER —
 shipping it"** (all three just above the CLOSED sections) — the first tells you how Oliver's feedback
 should be handled, the second is everything known to be outstanding in the game, the third is the
 demo/store/campaign plan, which is decided but entirely unbuilt. All four playtest rounds are closed
@@ -411,6 +412,122 @@ zombie (now an occasional opponent, `TUNE.racketEvery`, not the every-game fixtu
   `RETURNED`, `DOUBLE KILL`) is a footnote to something you already watched happen. Sharing the loud
   FACE with the milestone cards is right; sharing their SIZE made every footnote read as a milestone.
 
+## Session log: the roster doubles, the draw is made on screen, and netplay stops locking (2026-08-15)
+
+Oliver's seven-item batch. All of it is on STAGING and pending his phone verdict; items 3-5 in
+particular need two phones on cellular, which is the only place the bug they fix was ever seen.
+
+### 1. SIX NEW OPPONENT FAMILIES, and the ladder goes 12 -> 18 rungs
+
+*"expand the roster for the zombie tennis, use the proven way of generating the roster with the
+refcheck... head coach, stringer, strawberry seller, chair umpire, spectator, roller man."*
+
+Rolled through `_famroll.py` -> `_zsheet.py` exactly as the WHICH-TOOL table says, keys `hc sg sb
+cu sp rm`, each anchored on the body it already has in the gore mode (`z_coach1`, `z_string1`,
+`z_berry1`, `z_chair1`, `z_s1`, `z_k1`) — the rung and the thing that hunts you stay one person.
+186 new sprites, 6 new head icons, `_heads.py` SRC/BOX rows for all of them. Placed by HIERARCHY
+rather than stacked on the end (spectator 3, roller man 5, seller 9, stringer 10, chair umpire 12,
+head coach 14), so the ladder still reads as the club's staff from the bottom up, and **the
+champion took the step up Oliver asked for**: 1.45 speed / 1.42 pace / 1.36 width / 0.38 flub,
+against 1.35 / 1.30 / 1.30 / 0.50. `CUP_ROUNDS` bands widened to match, `LADDER` is exported so the
+ramp test and the draw screen read the table instead of a pinned 12.
+
+**TWO PIPELINE LESSONS, both paid for in rolls:**
+
+- **THE RACKET IS THE POSE, NOT A PROP — say it out loud.** All six of these characters carry
+  something in their anchor frame (a ball basket, a coil of string, a tray, an umpire's chair, a
+  folding chair, a court roller), so each description had to say the thing is gone — and the model
+  read "he carries nothing in either hand" as covering the RACKET too. Two families came back
+  playing tennis bare-handed and the strawberry seller returned every shot with his tray. There is
+  now a permanent clause in `_famroll.prompt()` saying the racket belongs to image 1's pose and is
+  never removed or replaced. Describe a prop's REMOVAL by naming the prop ("the tray image 2 shows
+  is NOT part of him"), never by talking about what his hands hold.
+- **A prop at head height defeats `_heads.py`'s shoulder-widening rule every time.** All six needed
+  a hand `BOX`; the automatic crops came back 88x18, 36x17 and 35x16 — a letterbox of scalp. If a
+  new family's head icon is a thin strip, that is the diagnosis, and a `BOX` row is the fix.
+- The club pro finally has a head icon too (`z_rhead.png`, cut from `z_c1` — the turned opponent
+  IS him), so `SPR` preloads all of ZFAMS and the draw screen's portrait column is consistent.
+- **`ENEMIES['L' + i]` was reading BOSS_ART for the NAME and OPPONENTS for the line** — the same
+  answer only while the two lists were the same list, and they were decoupled on 2026-08-13. The
+  body-count screen has been printing THE PHYSIO over the mascot's line ever since. It reads one
+  list now, which is also what stops rungs 11-18 having no row at all.
+
+### 2. THE DRAW — the tournament's bracket, settled in front of you
+
+*"when starting the tournament there should be a view of the tournament hierarchy but only the
+finale is settled... random browsing through the roster in the individual spots which begins fast,
+gets slower and then settles on a random character, so that every tournament is new."*
+
+A new menu stage (`#bracket`, `main.buildBracket`), not a court-owning mode: SERVE UP lands here
+when the picked mode is `cup`, four rows roll their own band of the ladder at a gap that grows with
+p², they land in order at 1.5 / 2.05 / 2.6 s, and ENTER THE DRAW is `disabled` until the last one
+stops. The final wears its settled look from the first frame — it was never in doubt.
+
+**THE SCREEN IS THE DRAW, NOT A TEASER.** `startMatch(cup, draw)` takes the settled rungs and
+`cupDraw` reads them off instead of rolling its own, so the face you watched land in ROUND ONE is
+the body across the net. A screen that dealt a different tournament from the one it just showed you
+would teach the player that the whole ceremony is a lie. `cupDraw` still validates each rung
+against its round's band and rolls honestly if it does not fit, so a stale or hand-passed draw
+cannot deal THE CHAMPION in round one. `#cup` (the back door) passes no draw and behaves as before.
+
+### 3-5. NETPLAY: the deathmatch lock, the court, and the ball that froze
+
+**The lock — "sometimes both players stand on the same side and nobody can serve" (cellular).**
+ROOT CAUSE FOUND AND IT IS ONE LINE: the mid-flight early-decide in `update()` was missing the
+`!G.net` gate its bounce-1 sibling in `onBounce` has carried since the netplay session. It exists to
+predict THE CPU'S LEGS; against a human on another phone it made the STRIKER a judge of its own
+outbound flight (`resolveInterlude` sends the verdict), so on a slow link both phones scored the
+same rally. The two scoreboards then sat a point apart forever — and that is not cosmetic, because
+`setupPoint` reads `score.pts` for the deuce/ad side and `score.server` for who tosses. One point of
+drift puts both players on the same half of their own court, each waiting for the other to serve,
+with no way out. **The one rule is that the receiving phone judges; this was the last place still
+breaking it.** The 2026-08-14 log claims the early-decide was gated — only the bounce-1 half was.
+
+Belt and braces, because that failure mode is a soft-lock rather than a wrong number: **the HOST's
+10 Hz position stream now carries its scoreboard while it sits in `pretoss`, and the guest adopts
+it mirrored** (`netSync`). Gated to `pretoss` ONLY — nothing is mid-beat there and any verdict in
+flight has long landed — so a live rally is never reconciled underneath itself. One authority, no
+new message type. `score.games` is deliberately NOT synced (ponytail): it costs a wrong number on a
+board rather than a court nobody can serve on.
+
+**The court rides the room.** `?court=<id>` at creation, stored beside `death` on the host's room in
+server.py, carried in the `start` message, applied by `netStart` -> `selectCourt`. Safe mid-run: the
+bounce pair is copied into TUNE and the backdrop cache keys on `court.id`. Two phones playing one
+rally on two surfaces disagreed about the bounce as well as the picture, and the guest never chose.
+
+**A called ball plays out.** *"as soon as the ball goes out the gameloop stops — it should just play
+until it came to a natural halt."* Every scoring path used to switch the ball off where it stood,
+which on the STRIKER's phone is a whole court and a latency away from the call. `ball.scored` is the
+new flag: the flight is decided, physics keeps running, and the ball dies where a real one would —
+by rolling to a stop under the existing `|vy| < 0.8` dead-ball rule. `endFlight()` in gameplay.js is
+the one place that decides which it is (netplay rolls, everything else stops dead, so no
+single-player feel changed), and `onBounce` returns on `ball.scored` at the top, which covers every
+call site in one line. The three consequences further down the physics block (the dead-roll branch,
+the baseline crossing, the retire) carry the same guard. `setupPoint` clears it.
+
+### 6. THE NIGHT COURT
+
+A `COURTS` row (`gloom`, THE NIGHT COURT) plus one generated menu tile. It needed no new palette
+machinery — its TENNIS palette is simply darker than every other court's SPLATTER one, and
+`paintBackdrop` already paints every line in `UI.cream`, so the lines read as chalk under
+floodlights with no new knob. It borrows the hard court's stands and boards rather than growing two
+more sheets. **The one thing it did need is `dim`**: a fraction the STAND is taken down by before
+the rot even starts (`render.standDim`, 0.62 here and absent everywhere else). Without it a
+floodlit blue crowd sat above a near-black court and the picture stopped being a night. `standDim`
+is ONE function because the number is applied twice — to the cached sheet and to the live clap
+columns drawn over it — and two copies of it is a stand whose clapping columns pop brighter than
+the rest of it, the same class of bug as the two crowd frames drifting apart.
+
+### 7. CAMERA FLASHES IN THE STAND
+
+`render.tickFlashes`, an OVERLAY like the clap ripple and for the same reason: the backdrop is one
+cached blit and anything animated inside it repaints the whole scene every frame. Clocked off
+`G.idleT` (the function has no dt, and idleT is the clock that never stops). A flash is a hot core
+plus a cold bloom, `TUNE.flashLife` 0.16 s — deliberately short, because a flash you can look AT is
+a lamp and one you only catch is a photograph being taken. The first cut drew a 6 px disc and read
+as a floodlight; it is 1-2 px now. `TUNE.flashEvery` (5 s, jittered 0.35x..1.95x) is the one knob,
+halved again while `crowd.cheer` runs — which is the "slightly increase during applause".
+
 ## Session log: MULTIPLAYER — the live 1v1 socket (2026-08-14). PHONE VERDICT PENDING
 
 Oliver: *"alright multiplayer"* — and, offered the recorded ghost-match step one, he picked the

assets/_famroll.py

@@ -54,6 +54,41 @@ FAMS = {
                      'grey-green head pokes out of a hole in the ball, thin ragged green arms and '
                      'legs stick out of it, one white glove, worn sneakers. The huge yellow ball IS '
                      'his torso in every pose'),
+ # the 2026-08-15 six (Oliver: expand the ladder). Four anchor on their own settled BOSS frame and
+ # two on their gore-mode body, same rule as above — the rung and the thing that hunts you are one
+ # person. EVERY ONE OF THEM CARRIES A PROP IN ITS ANCHOR FRAME (a ball basket, a coil of string, a
+ # tray, an umpire's chair, a spectator's chair, a court roller) and a prop is exactly what a
+ # 31-figure sheet cannot hold: it merges frames in the cut and it has no business in a tennis pose.
+ # So each description names the prop and says it is GONE — the model needs telling, because the
+ # reference picture is holding one and a picture beats a paragraph.
+ 'hc': ('z_coach1', 'a ZOMBIE HEAD COACH in a NAVY BLUE TRACKSUIT: a zip-up navy jacket with a pale '
+                    'blue-and-white panel across the chest and white stripes down the sleeves, a '
+                    'club crest, a whistle on a cord round his neck, matching navy tracksuit '
+                    'trousers with white side stripes, dark trainers, and a bald grey-green head. '
+                    'He carries NO basket and NO balls: both hands are empty of props in every pose'),
+ 'sg': ('z_string1', 'a ZOMBIE RACKET STRINGER: a grubby off-white shirt with the sleeves rolled to '
+                     'the elbow under a heavy TAN LEATHER APRON, a row of awls and pliers across '
+                     'the apron chest, a tool belt, faded blue-grey jeans and scuffed brown boots. '
+                     'He carries NO loose coils of string and nothing floats above his head — the '
+                     'apron and the tools on it are the whole costume'),
+ 'sb': ('z_berry1', 'a ZOMBIE STRAWBERRY SELLER: a folded WHITE PAPER SERVING CAP, a cream shirt, a '
+                    'WHITE APRON blotched and dripping with crushed red strawberry stain, dark '
+                    'brown trousers and heavy boots. The tray of strawberries and the ladle image 2 '
+                    'shows are NOT part of him: leave the tray and the ladle out of the picture '
+                    'entirely, and never draw them in place of a racket'),
+ 'cu': ('z_chair1', 'a ZOMBIE CHAIR UMPIRE: a pale CREAM LINEN BLAZER over a white shirt with a '
+                    'dark navy tie, a pale straw sun hat with a band, olive-brown trousers and dark '
+                    'shoes. The umpire\'s high chair, the ladder and the microphone image 2 shows '
+                    'are NOT part of him: leave all three out of the picture entirely'),
+ 'sp': ('z_s1', 'a gaunt scrawny ZOMBIE SPECTATOR in a drab pale OLIVE-KHAKI summer jacket over a '
+                'grubby shirt, dark olive trousers and worn shoes, thin and round-shouldered. The '
+                'wooden folding chair image 2 shows over his shoulder is NOT part of him: leave the '
+                'chair out of the picture entirely, and never draw it in place of a racket'),
+ 'rm': ('z_k1', 'a big heavy ZOMBIE ROLLER MAN: a sleeveless OLIVE-GREEN WORK VEST over bare '
+                'grey-green arms, a brown leather tool belt with a pouch on it, olive work trousers '
+                'and heavy dark boots, bald. The court roller image 2 shows him hauling is NOT part '
+                'of him: leave the roller and its handle out of the picture entirely, and never '
+                'draw them in place of a racket'),
 }
 
 
@@ -110,6 +145,14 @@ def prompt(who):
      'THE CHARACTER\'S OWN BUILD OVERRIDES IMAGE 1\'S: if image 2 shows a wider, heavier or fatter '
      'body than the figures of image 1, every redrawn figure keeps that wider, heavier body in '
      'every pose. Only the POSE comes from image 1 — never the physique.\n\n'
+     # THE RACKET IS THE POSE, NOT A PROP, and it has to be said out loud (2026-08-15). Four of the
+     # six rolls that day were of characters who carry something in their anchor frame — a tray, a
+     # court roller, a folding chair — so their descriptions had to say the thing is gone, and the
+     # model read "he carries nothing" as covering the racket too: two families came back playing
+     # tennis bare-handed and one returned every shot with a strawberry tray.
+     'EVERY FIGURE STILL HOLDS THE TENNIS RACKET image 1 gives it, in the same hand, in the same '
+     'frames. The racket belongs to the POSE and is never removed, never replaced by anything the '
+     'character is carrying in image 2, and no figure that has one in image 1 has an empty hand.\n\n'
      # EVERY UNDAMAGED FIGURE HAS A HEAD, said out loud. The clause above ("a figure with no head
      # keeps no head") is there for the wound rows and the old normalisation pass took it as licence
      # to remove one from the play row — which is how six families came back with a decapitated

assets/_heads.py

@@ -24,9 +24,12 @@ SCRATCH = os.path.join(HERE, '_refcheck')
 
 # fam -> the gore-mode body it anchors on. KEEP IN SYNC with _famroll.FAMS (not imported: that
 # module wants `requests` at import time, which the pillow/numpy env running this does not carry).
-SRC = {'br': 'z_g1', 'sh': 'z_a1', 'bb': 'z_e1', 'st': 'z_d1', 'ru': 'z_f1',
+SRC = {'r': 'z_c1',  # the club pro: the turned opponent IS him, and it is his goriest print
+       'br': 'z_g1', 'sh': 'z_a1', 'bb': 'z_e1', 'st': 'z_d1', 'ru': 'z_f1',
        'gk': 'z_boss1', 'lj': 'z_judge1', 'dr': 'z_dir1', 'ch': 'z_champ1',
-       'ph': 'z_physio1', 'ma': 'z_mascot1'}
+       'ph': 'z_physio1', 'ma': 'z_mascot1',
+       'hc': 'z_coach1', 'sg': 'z_string1', 'sb': 'z_berry1', 'cu': 'z_chair1',
+       'sp': 'z_s1', 'rm': 'z_k1'}
 # head depth as a fraction of the standing figure, where the shoulder-widening rule fails:
 # the mascot's head IS partly the ball, and the ball is his identity — the wide crop is right.
 DEPTH = {'ma': 0.37}
@@ -39,7 +42,18 @@ DEPTH = {'ma': 0.37}
 BOX = {'gk': (0.45, 0.14, 0.70, 0.44), 'dr': (0.20, 0.00, 0.55, 0.30),
        'ph': (0.41, 0.02, 0.75, 0.33), 'ru': (0.25, 0.00, 0.80, 0.24),
        'lj': (0.30, 0.00, 0.65, 0.32), 'br': (0.28, 0.00, 0.66, 0.30),
-       'ch': (0.32, 0.00, 0.66, 0.30)}
+       'ch': (0.32, 0.00, 0.66, 0.30),
+       # the 2026-08-15 six. EVERY ONE of them needed a hand box, and for the same reason each
+       # needed its prop talked out of the family roll: the thing they carry rides at head height.
+       # The stringer's coil, the seller's cap-and-tray, the umpire's chair, the spectator's ladder
+       # and the roller man's shoulder all fired the shoulder-widening rule inside the first few
+       # rows, and the automatic crop came back 88x18 / 36x17 / 35x16 — a letterbox of scalp.
+       'r': (0.40, 0.00, 0.82, 0.31),
+       'hc': (0.36, 0.00, 0.74, 0.26), 'sg': (0.42, 0.00, 0.72, 0.28),
+       'sb': (0.36, 0.00, 0.72, 0.30), 'cu': (0.36, 0.12, 0.92, 0.44),
+       # the spectator KEEPS his ladder in frame — it is behind and around his head in the only
+       # drawing of him there is, and a crop tight enough to lose it loses half his face too
+       'sp': (0.50, 0.21, 0.77, 0.47), 'rm': (0.10, 0.00, 0.40, 0.26)}
 
 
 def head_box(a):