The Inventory tab is the truth about your physical parts: which unit is bolted to which car, how worn it is, what is sitting on the shelf, and whether each car can legally take the start. It is the default tab of the R&D app and one of only three reachable during pre-season. Nothing here costs Work Units — fitting and swapping are free.
How to open it
- Car icon → any tab in the shared bar → Inventory (tab 3).
- It is where the R&D app opens by default (
RndScreen::new()starts on tab 3). - Available during pre-season as well (with Production and Private Testing), while every other tab is greyed out.
Car selector
Three buttons across the top: Car 1 / Car 2 / Reserve, labelled with the driver’s three-letter code when a driver is signed. The third slot is the mule (development car, slot 2) — the car the Private Testing programme runs. It is a real car with real fitted parts, not a spares bin.
Below the selector sits the driver header (helmet + flag + name) and the baked team car with the helmet composited into the cockpit.
The Components panel (left)
One row per component, for the selected car:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Component | Icon + name. Click to load its parts on the right; the selected row is marked ▶ |
| Ver | The fitted part’s designation badge, YY-TRI-Vn (e.g. 91-ABC-V3). Blue = this is the component’s default production design; grey = some other spec. A small →vN hint appears when you own a newer version than the one fitted |
| Condition | Health life-bar, 0–100, with a red danger zone under 30% |
| Qty | Spares in stock that are usable right now (during a locked weekend, only parts that travelled count) |
| Race | Race-ready tickbox — green check or red cross |
The engine’s designation uses the engine supplier’s trigram, not the team’s — it is their unit, not your design.
The Parts panel (right)
Every unit you own for the selected component, fitted or not.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Part | Component icon + version badge (blue when it is the default design) |
| Quality | The loot tier chip — Poor / Normal / Good / Very Good / Perfect |
| Perf | Green bar = current_perf on the 0–100 display scale; hatched tail = head-room to potential |
| Condition | Health life-bar (danger zone < 30%) |
| Reliab. | fiability × 100, green ≥ 100, amber ≥ 90, red below |
| Status | FITTED (this car) · the other car’s driver code · Spare · At factory |
| Action | Equip / Equip (swap) / Sell $NK, or ✓ Fitted |
The display scale on both bars is pts = (perf − 0.92) / 0.16 × 100, so 0.92 = 0 points and 1.08 = 100 points. The bar is not clamped at 100 — an overdriven part draws past it (see R&D — Improve).
Rows are tinted by quality tier (Poor grey, Good green, Very Good blue, Perfect purple; Normal keeps the default alternating stripe). A fitted part keeps a green highlight instead.
Damage flags on the fitted unit
Two warning levels blink on the fitted row:
| Flag | Rule | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Red perf cell | current_perf < 0.5 × initial_perf — DESTROYED | The car cannot start (DNS) |
| Amber perf cell | perf collapsed by damage: current_perf ≤ 0.921 and below initial_perf − 0.01 | Racing it is legal but reckless |
| Amber condition cell | health < 70% | Same warning level |
A part that was simply built at zero display points (a mediocre season-1 gearbox at its nominal spec) is not flagged — the collapse test requires an actual drop below the as-built value.
Quality tiers
Quality is rolled once, when a part is manufactured, and never changes. It adds a budget on top of the infra-driven base, split randomly between immediate performance and head-room:
| Tier | Budget (perf units) | Guaranteed head-room floor |
|---|---|---|
| Poor | −0.010 | +0.004 (~2.5 pts) |
| Normal | 0.000 | +0.008 (~5 pts) |
| Good | +0.016 | +0.014 (~8.75 pts) |
| Very Good | +0.030 | +0.020 (~12.5 pts) |
| Perfect | +0.046 | +0.026 (~16 pts) |
The split is perf_bonus = budget × s, head_bonus = budget × (1−s) with s ∈ [0.25, 0.75]. So two Perfect parts of the same component can arrive as “ready now, low ceiling” or “raw, huge ceiling”. initial_perf is capped at 1.12, potential at 1.18.
Quality also gates positive traits: Poor/Normal roll none at all, Good caps at Bronze, Very Good at Silver, Perfect at Gold. Negative traits can land on any tier. See Car Traits.
Equipping and unequipping
Equip fits the chosen unit to the currently displayed car and unfits whatever occupied that component slot. The removed part returns to the spares pool. It is instant and free — no WU, no cash, no delivery wait.
Auto Fit Fresh Parts (green button at the bottom) does the whole car in one click:
- For each component, find the best fresh spare —
health ≥ 99.5, then highestcurrent_perf. - Swap it in when the fitted part is worn (
health < 99.5) or the fresh spare is strictly better. - Displaced parts go back to the pool. No WU spent.
Selling spares
Only unfitted parts get a Sell button, and only when no weekend loadout is locked.
price = new_part_cost(component) × 0.35 × (health/100) × quality_mult
quality_mult: Poor 0.80 · Normal 1.00 · Good 1.15 · Very Good 1.30 · Perfect 1.50Reference new-part prices: engine $1.5M · body $1.2M · floor $500K · gearbox $200K · rear wing $120K · brake $110K · electronics $100K · cooling $100K · front wing $90K · fuel system $50K · suspension $50K.
A pristine Perfect floor therefore resells for 500,000 × 0.35 × 1.0 × 1.5 = $262,500. A half-dead Poor front wing fetches about $12K — not worth the click.
The weekend-loadout lock
Once the Weekend Loadout is confirmed, the truck is packed and the inventory indices anchor it. Two classes of operation behave differently:
| Operation | During a locked weekend |
|---|---|
| Equip a part that travelled | Allowed — the swapped-out part stays at the track and is registered back into the loadout so it can be re-fitted |
| Equip a part left at the factory | Refused — the row shows At factory / “Left at the factory” and has no button |
| Sell | Blocked entirely — selling removes an inventory entry and shifts every index above it |
| Buy new (Repair tab) | Blocked — no purchases at the track; use Swap spare |
| Rush production | Blocked — the truck is packed; the button is grey |
| Standard production order | Allowed — it only queues a job delivered after the GP, no index shifting |
The rule is mechanical, not thematic: anything that removes an inventory row would invalidate the loadout’s stored indices.
Advanced
- The design ↔ part invariant self-heals. On every load and every R&D screen open,
seed_known_designsreconciles both ways: each design is raised to the best owned copy’s as-built spec, and every owned copy is lifted up to its design’sinitial_perf/potential.current_perfis only lifted on a fresh copy — race damage is preserved as a repair job. So swapping to a same-design spare can never silently drop you below the level you already paid to develop. - Improvements propagate. Confirming an Improve raises the fitted parts, then
propagate_improvements_to_speclifts the matching design, every same-spec shelf spare, and any pending production order. You never have to re-develop a spare. - The
→vNhint is your upgrade reminder. A newer version sitting in stock and not fitted is pure lost performance; Auto Fit will not pick it up if the fitted part is also fresh and marginally faster oncurrent_perf. - Reserve-car parts count. The mule (slot 2) needs fitted parts or the Private Testing programme reports
IdleMuleNotBuilt. Build a third set in Production during pre-season. - The Qty column lies during a weekend — on purpose. It counts only spares that travelled, which is exactly what you can use right now.
Common mistakes
- Selling the old version right after a redesign. Keep at least one spare of the fitted spec: a destroyed part is replaced from the freshest spare for free, and with an empty shelf your only option is a cash purchase at rush price.
- Forgetting the mule. Building only two cars leaves Private Testing permanently idle while the plan still looks configured.
- Clicking Auto Fit during a locked weekend and expecting a miracle. It can only use parts that travelled — plan the loadout properly instead.
- Reading a red perf cell as “needs repair”. Red means destroyed and DNS: R&D cannot salvage it. You need a spare swap or a new build.
- Assuming the blue version badge means “best”. Blue means default production spec. You can own a better version that is not the chosen default — check the Production tab’s “Choose default”.
- Selling a Perfect spare for cash. 35% of list is a bad trade for a part whose head-room you can still develop.
See also
- R&D — the Car App Hub — the pools and the tab map
- R&D — Production — where new units come from
- R&D — Repair — destroyed parts and spare swaps
- R&D — Improve — the perf/head-room scale
- Parts, Damage & Wear — how parts get damaged in the first place
- Weekend Loadout — what travels to the track
- Car Traits — hidden modifiers carried by parts
- My Car — the read-only spec sheet