Time a tap from touch-down, and give the opponents' legs a knee

Oliver after step 1: much harder, stuck at the Steward, "trotz gutem
Timing nicht mehr bekommen". A tap only proves it is a tap when the
finger lifts, so the swing started 100-150 ms after he meant it; the old
volley window hid that, step 1's groundstrokes did not. A tap made on the
gold ring fell from q 0.82 to 0.09 (and a third were missed at 150 ms),
murky balls landed short and the opponent came in. The swing clock now
starts at the touch's age (rally modes only); flicks keep their crossing.

The opponents' legs had no ceiling: 7.3 m/s at the Runner, 15.7 at the
Champion against the player's ~6.2. Past legKnee (6 m/s) only 15% of the
growth survives, monotone, so the ladder order holds; champion ~7.5. v362.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

PROJECT.md

@@ -5262,6 +5262,30 @@ late opponent at the net covers every pass, so the bot loses ~95% of the points
 comes in. That is step 4 (and the passing/lob game of steps 2-3); it is deliberately not mixed into
 step 1, so its phone verdict reads one change.
 
+### Step 1's phone verdict, and the two fixes it surfaced (2026-10-14, v362)
+Oliver: *"schritt 1 ist schon gut ... Das Spiel ist momentan wesentlich schwerer geworden (not a bad
+thing) — ich komme als geübter Spieler über the Climb vielleicht höchstens bis zum Steward. das liegt vor
+allem gefühlt an der Geschwindigkeit und manchmal scheine ich den Ball trotz gutem Timing nicht mehr zu
+bekommen."* Two real defects, measured, and neither of them was a balance value:
+- **A TAP SWUNG WHEN THE FINGER LIFTED.** A touch only proves it is a tap at touchend (it could still
+  become a flick), so the swing started 100-150 ms after the player meant it. The volley window used to
+  absorb that (x1.8 window, x1.4 reach). Step 1 made the rally groundstrokes, and the lag became visible.
+  Ring-tapping bot at opponent 6, finger down exactly on gold:
+  0 ms of tap = 100% returned at q 0.82, 100 ms = 95% at **q 0.09**, 150 ms = **40%** returned.
+  Murky returns land short, a short ball pulls the opponent in, and his legs then made him unpassable: a
+  cascade, felt as "speed". **Fix:** input.js hands the touch's age to `keyPressed('Space', lead)`, and
+  the rally swing clock starts at `lead` (rally modes only). Timing is judged from touch-down; the ball
+  still has to arrive inside the window. Flicks keep their crossing-fired swing (the left-flick saga).
+  After the fix: 100 ms taps 99-100% at q 0.96. Verified with real touch events in the pane (a 120 ms
+  tap starts the swing at 0.122 s). Test: a gold-ring tap with 120 ms on top returns >= 90% at q >= 0.6
+  (it fails at q 0.08 without the fix).
+- **THE LEGS GET A KNEE** (step 4, first cut). `gameplay.knee`: up to `legKnee` (6.0 m/s) nothing
+  changes; past it only `legSoft` (15%) of the growth survives. Runner 7.3 -> 6.2, Umpire 8.3 -> 6.3,
+  Coach 10.6 -> 6.7, Champion 15.7 -> ~7.5. The player is ~6.2 at level 1 and gets more with level and
+  peer gifts. The mapping is monotone, so the ladder order and the like-for-like speed tests hold. Only
+  the rig guard (`> 7 m/s`) moved, to `> legKnee*0.8`. Rungs 1-7 are unchanged: the Steward (6) already
+  ran 5.6. Ball PACE is untouched; it is at full pace times the league tier from rung 5.
+
 # OPEN — leftovers, in rough priority order
 
 Nothing here is broken; these are known gaps and unverified risks.