Splatter: the pull IS the shot — direction aims, length is power

The ball economy made it harder in the wrong way: waiting for a ballboy is
friction, not difficulty, and walking with the finger was one gesture too many
for anyone to discover. Both are out — a spent ball hands you a fresh one
again, and the thumb only ever does the slingshot.

The brake moves into the gesture instead. The pull's LENGTH is now the shot's
power and nothing else: under TUNE.zSplatQ it merely staggers, at full draw
it's quality 1.0 with the PERFECT flash and hitstop. A lazy rhythm of short
pulls can't kill anything, so tempo stops being a strategy.

The pull's DIRECTION is a ray, not a landing point, which is the ergonomic fix
for having to drag off the bottom of the phone: distance to the target no
longer costs drag length. The first shambler standing in the lane eats the
ball, whether it's 5 or 21 metres away, and the cone widens with range so
distant lanes stay pickable. Full power now sits at 95px of travel.

Also gone: the free predictive auto-lock on a directionless aim (zombieTarget
returns null with no direction, and a bare hold no longer fires at all). Melee
goes back to cleaving the cluster — it's the panic button — with the 1s
cooldown left in as the brake. The reticle reads power throughout: cool blue
only staggers, hot red kills, the drawn band grows behind you, and the pull
clicks the moment it crosses the kill threshold.

Verified by simulated touch gestures: 10px cancels, 35px = 0.31 (stagger),
60px = 0.60, 95px = 1.00; the same 60px pull reaches shamblers at 5m, 21m and
diagonally; 22 serves in 30s, so the pace is back.

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

config.js

@@ -31,11 +31,15 @@ export const TUNE = {
   zSplatQ: 0.5,     // min shot quality to splatter; below = stagger pushback
   zPushback: 1.4,   // m a staggered zombie is knocked back
   splatterOverT: 0.1, // s the spent-ball 'over' beat lasts before the next serve is armed
-  // ball economy: a dead ball LIES on the court. No serve until it's back in your hand.
-  pickupR: 1.4,     // m — walk over your loose ball to pick it up instantly (the fast way)
-  eatBallR: 0.8,    // m — a shambler this close to a loose ball swallows it
-  looseMax: 2.0,    // s before the boys hand you one anyway — the ceiling on standing ball-less. THE fire-rate knob.
-  fetchEaten: 3.5,  // s until fresh balls arrive after one got eaten — the only real punishment in the economy
+  // the slingshot: the pull's DIRECTION picks a lane, its LENGTH is power. Deliberately DECOUPLED —
+  // reaching a far shambler must not cost a longer drag than the screen has room for. The old
+  // mapping (pull length = reach) is why you had to drag off the bottom of the phone.
+  pullMin: 18,      // px of pull below which the release cancels — no shot, nothing spent
+  pullFull: 95,     // px of pull for a full-power shot. Keep this well inside one thumb's travel.
+  pullQMin: 0.12,   // shot quality at pullMin, scaling to 1.0 (= PERFECT) at pullFull. Below
+                    // zSplatQ it only staggers, so a lazy flick can't kill: THE anti-spam knob.
+  aimCone: 0.45,    // lane half-width per meter of range — the aim cone widens with distance
+  aimReach: 22,     // m the aim ray runs when no shambler stands in the lane
   backstopZ: -1.8,  // z of the far backstop — must sit IN FRONT of the -2 retire line, or balls die before they reach it
   backstopKeep: 0.55, // pace a ball keeps after the rebound — still lethal, slower
   backstopPop: 1.8,   // m/s of lift off the fence, so the rebound travels back instead of dying at the net posts