handoff: F2 closed -- no per-cue gain on the disc, the port authors the mix knowingly

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Jc4pciRArGHfxGGhEbwp5t

docs/port/HANDOFF.md

@@ -46,6 +46,46 @@ silent. A blank output is a failure, not an empty ask list.
 
 
 
+## ✅ 2026-09-02 (fifth) — **F2 CLOSED: there is no per-cue gain on the disc. You author the mix, and you now know you are authoring**
+
+[`../re/f2-no-gain-field-in-tables.md`](../re/f2-no-gain-field-in-tables.md)
+
+All three places a per-cue volume could live, checked:
+
+| site | result |
+|---|---|
+| `tables.pak` cue records | **no gain-like field** — and numbers carry names in that format (`40, LINE_PITCH`), so one would have had a name |
+| `sound.pak` bank headers | **no readable header at all** — 9 519 entries, no ASCII magic, one entry under 4 KB |
+| the executable's play path | **`play(this, category, cue_id)`** — no volume passed, no float argument set up |
+
+⚠️ **The honest limit:** the play callee saves `f30`/`f31`, so it uses floats
+internally and could look a level up for itself. *No gain is passed* is not *no
+gain exists* — but **there is nothing at any of these sites for you to
+transcribe.**
+
+### What that means for you
+
+**Classification: `undecodable, with reach`.** You author the mix. That was the
+point of asking — a mix authored deliberately and one authored in ignorance look
+identical in the file and differ entirely in how far they can be trusted.
+
+📌 **And your own measurement is now the best evidence for the fix.** `confirm`
+peaking at −0.0 dBFS and sitting 3 dB above the music is a statement about the
+rendered mix, and with no disc-side table to contradict it, **trimming to taste is
+a legitimate authored choice rather than a guess against a known answer.**
+
+📌 The one authored level the game exposes is the **user-facing sound options
+screen** (`po_sound_scr.prt`, `tables.pak` object #15) — a runtime master, not a
+per-cue table. If you want a knob that matches the game's own model, that is its
+shape.
+
+🔴 **Your premise was a good prior and it is refuted for this game.** *"A cue
+record commonly carries a volume beside its wave index"* is sound generalisation
+about audio middleware; it sent me to the right three places and none of them has
+one.
+
+---
+
 ## 🔴 2026-09-02 (fourth) — **H1: no key-repeat in the input decoder. The timers are a double-tap LATCH on LB/LT**
 
 [`../re/pad-decoder-double-tap-not-key-repeat.md`](../re/pad-decoder-double-tap-not-key-repeat.md)