# Hard CPU coaching and stability — 2026-10-29

Hard CPU teams choose a stronger available keeper from their real roster and
promote the strongest first forward unit from their existing normal lines.
All four human-team ports are protected. Normal/Easy decision paths and actual
player attributes, skating, shots and save physics retain their rules. Native
personnel and fatigue calculations use the same temporary line cache; original
profiles and special teams remain intact. In this ROM EDM uses Jarry and the
Draisaitl/Hyman/McDavid trio. No team-specific production outcome logic.

Native rewind undo now uses the existing wrapped buffer advance. Clearing the
powerplay display preserves the caller's team pointers across the original
logo routine. Reserve-goalie season accounting separates actual individual
keeper GA/SA from skater statistics and records every keeper who played. The
actual ending keeper receives a winning team's simplified season W credit;
this is not a reconstruction of official substitution chronology.

All38 exact-ROM/source checks pass, including46 native first-line cases,
46 keeper-selection cases,12 league/playoff keeper-accounting cases,6 rewind
and4 powerplay-display cases, the full existing menu/controller/season/shot/AI
matrix and a natural Hard CPU game. The original0-2 accounting failure is
reproduced and corrected with identical goal frames and save commit. Independent
rebuild, exact r9 rollback and original-v5.1W IPS reconstruction pass.

Earlier repeated native tests of this coaching policy total93/150 wins versus
r9 controls72/150; latest34/50 goals90-59. The35/50 strength target is still
unfinished. User explicitly requested this verified playable copy before
continuing. Later save-timing, point-frequency and finisher-hold experiments
are not included. Crit On/Off is requested for a subsequent update, not present
in this version.

ROM SHA256:b81bbd5510edc8496d9a50cce269dee653067977f6ae05b3ca89cdf3ad20bd8c
CRC32:B999E29D. Current exact receipt:QA_STATUS.json. Details:GOALIE_STATS_WIP.md,
AI_STRENGTH_WIP.md,MOMENTUM_WAVES.md. Private evidence work/hard-strength-20261028-231416/.