Player Wiki
The Undercut — Player Wiki
Everything you need to run a successful season — from your first career to the deepest race-day strategy decisions. This wiki documents how the game actually works under the hood, in plain language for players.
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Getting Started
New to The Undercut? Start here.
- Game Overview WIP What The Undercut is, what a typical session feels like, and where to go next in the wiki.
- First Career WIP The new-career wizard, day-1 checklist, GP 1 walkthrough, and common rookie mistakes.
- Glossary WIP Every acronym, abbreviation, and jargon term used in The Undercut, decoded.
Career Mode — The Shell
The screens the career lives in — setup wizard, hub, desktop, mail, news, in-game settings.
- New Career (Setup Wizard) WIP The four-screen New Career wizard — budget tier, home country, team identity, and what a freshly generated world contains.
- Career Hub WIP The home dashboard of career mode — the pre-season stepper, the alert cards, and every gate that can block Next GP.
- Career Desktop & Sidebar WIP The Win95 sidebar and desktop — every app icon, the department gauges, the taskbar, and what is locked in which phase.
- PFS Mail WIP The career inbox and action queue — action mails, decision mails, and the mailbox gate that can block the next race.
- News (PFS Media) WIP The paddock newspaper — the clickable headline feed, the four standing panels, and what the rest of the world is up to.
- Settings (in career) WIP The in-career Settings app — language, units, UI and HUD scale, all changeable without leaving your save.
- Automation WIP Hand any department of your team — or the race weekends — to the AI, from the app header or Settings → Automation.
Drivers & Staff
Line-up, scouting, the academy, transfer windows and driver dossiers.
- My Team WIP Your driver line-up — Primary, Secondary and Reserve seats, and how to swap, promote, fire or replace them.
- Scouting WIP The driver market — knowledge %, scouting work units, observation missions, offers and how acceptance is decided.
- Driver Academy WIP Juniors and development prospects you own outright — recruitment, training, loans to the ladder, and promotion.
- Mid-Season Signing Window WIP The GP-10 free weekend — three negotiation turns for free agents and every driver in the final year of a contract.
- Driver Profile WIP A driver's full dossier — record, stats and how much of them you know, wages, demands, and every action you can take.
- Pre-Season & Transfer Window Planned When you can sign, fire, swap drivers — and how the transfer window works.
Money & Contracts
Sponsors, suppliers, marketing and how the money flows in and out.
- Sponsors WIP How sponsors work in The Undercut: pool generation, payouts, contract tiers, reputation gates, objectives.
- Suppliers WIP Engine, tire and fuel suppliers — pool generation, stat decoding, partnership vs. client contracts, negotiation.
- Marketing WIP Sponsors and suppliers in one app — five tabs, a shared pool of Marketing work units, and the negotiation-mission system.
- Finance WIP The team balance sheet — budget, net per GP, income and expense lines, season projection, equity sales and bank loans.
The Car
Components, damage, ratings, traits and infrastructure.
- Parts, Damage & Wear WIP The 11 components, how damage applies, when a part becomes 'destroyed', and how repairs work in R&D.
- Car Traits WIP Planned chassis personality flags layered on top of raw component stats — design intent and how they will plug into the sim.
- My Car WIP The read-only spec sheet for your machinery — part panels, power-unit figures, wear and health, and discovered traits.
- Cars Overview WIP The six car ratings and their letter grades — what each one measures, how it is computed, and how you compare to the field.
- Infrastructure WIP The nine departments, their levels, what each level buys, what it costs to run, and the upgrade order that pays off.
- Engine Supplier Stats Planned Power, endurance, reliability, potential — what each engine supplier stat maps to in-race.
- Tire Supplier Stats Planned Performance, endurance, reliability, heat resistance — and how to pick the right tire deal.
- Fuel Supplier Stats Planned The single fuel stat — `base_consumption` — and why a great fuel deal lets you swing strategy.
R&D — Research & Development
The Car app tab by tab — inventory, production, repair, improve, design, projects, private testing.
- R&D — the Car App Hub WIP The R&D app hub — nine tabs sharing one window and a small number of Work Unit pools every tab spends from.
- R&D — Inventory WIP Your physical parts — what is fitted to which car, what is on the shelf, how worn it is, and whether a car can legally start.
- R&D — Production WIP The factory floor that turns a blueprint into a physical part — the one R&D tab that spends money instead of Work Units.
- R&D — Repair WIP Restoring a fitted part to its as-built performance and 100% health with Engineering Work Units, and when not to bother.
- R&D — Improve WIP In-season development — pushing a fitted part toward its performance potential or its 1.20 reliability ceiling.
- R&D — Design WIP Commissioning projects — this season's new parts and next season's regulation car, the size slider, and deadline risk.
- R&D — Projects WIP The control room for every running project — re-allocate, watch or cancel, and read the true state of the R&D pool.
- R&D — Private Testing WIP A standing run plan for the development car, re-run every weekend — it buys part potential and trait knowledge.
- Reinforced Repairs & Fiability Boosts Planned Long-term fiability gains across the season — supplier objectives, end-of-season bonuses, engineering caps.
The Race Weekend
Loadout, free practice, run plans and the debrief — the weekend from truck to chequered flag.
- Weekend Pipeline Planned Practice → Qualifying → Race → Debrief. What each step does and how the pipeline flows.
- Weekend Loadout WIP What physically travels to the Grand Prix — how many cars, which spare parts, and what the loadout lock forbids.
- Free Practice WIP The 45-minute session — run plans, development programs, trait investigation, and pre-season testing.
- Qualifying & Race Run Plans WIP The two run-plan screens — compound, fuel and pace for qualifying, then the pit plan and start settings for the race.
- Race Debrief WIP The weekend closing report — results, championship swing, money, damage, morale, and what happens when you leave it.
On the Pit Wall — Race Strategy
Compounds, pit plans, engine maps, lift & coast, telemetry.
- Tire Compounds WIP Soft vs. Hard — speed bonus, wear curve, heat behaviour and when to pick which.
- Pit Strategy Plans WIP How the A / B / C strategy candidates are generated, why the letters are a ranking and not a recipe, and when each shape wins.
- Engine Map WIP The 0–10 engine map scale — speed vs. fuel/heat/wear trade-off, mistake amplification, and when to push or save.
- Lift & Coast WIP When the AI uses lift & coast, why, and how INT shapes its fuel-save and tire-cooling efficiency.
- Overtake Push WIP What the Overtake Push toggle actually does — doubled attempt probability, mistake risk, and when it pays off.
- Team Orders WIP Stay Behind and Let Pass — how the two team-order toggles work, when they fire automatically, and how to use them.
- Reading the Telemetry WIP How to read the race UI panels — timing tower, mini-sector deltas, per-driver gauges, data center, commentary feed.
The World & Rankings
Calendar, championships, world data, and the circuit / team / manufacturer / country dossiers.
- Calendar WIP The season schedule — 20 Grands Prix, the world circuit pool, circuit contracts and the GP-15 calendar review.
- Competition WIP The drivers and constructors championships — the points scale, live standings, and the button that ends the season.
- World Data WIP The reference almanac — fourteen sortable ranking tables covering the industry, teams, drivers, circuits and records.
- PFS Series Page WIP The championship's own profile — hall of fame, season history, the nations where it is biggest, and the full rule book.
- Development Ladder (PF2 / PF3) WIP The two feeder championships that run in the background of every career, and how their graduates reach your grid.
- Circuit Profile WIP A venue's full dossier — layout, key facts, every race ever held there, the lap record, facilities and contracts.
- Team Profile WIP A constructor's dossier — honours, prestige, season history, line-up, infrastructure, partners and car performance.
- Manufacturer Profile WIP The dossier of an engine or tyre maker — what it builds, its PFS record, its market share, and which teams it supplies.
- Country Profile WIP A nation's motorsport dossier — macro figures, national hall of fame, home manufacturers, circuits and series fame.
Driving & Race Sim
Race phases, mistakes, mechanical failures, yellow flags.
- Race Phases Planned Start lights, opening lap, mid-race, run to the flag — what changes between phases.
- Mistakes Planned Lockup / Wheelspin / Spin / Crash — what triggers them and how Caution recovery works.
- Pressure & Stamina Planned The two mental/physical bars and how driver stats blunt them.
- Side-by-Side & Overtaking Planned The corner-by-corner cession protocol, off-line attrition, and how committed overtakes resolve.
- Mechanical Failures Planned Failure rolls, the warning ladder (Yellow / Orange / Imminent), DNF flow.
- Yellow Flags & Safety Car Planned Sector yellows, FCY, Safety Car deployment, restart, pit windows.
Driver Choice & Personality
Driver stats, traits, track traits, team archetypes.
- Driver Stats Explained Planned What each 1–20 driver stat actually changes in race — INT, PAC, CON, ADA, STA, AGG.
- Driver Traits WIP Planned driver personality traits — Hothead, Iceman, Late Braker — and how they sit on top of raw stats.
- Team Archetypes Planned Pacesetter, Balanced, Conservative, etc. — how the AI biases its racing style by team identity.
- Driver Modifiers Planned Extra personality on top of team archetype — small per-driver tweaks to the AI behaviour.
- Track Traits WIP Per-track personality flags — high-speed, tire-shredder, pass heaven and how they steer existing race-sim parameters.
Visual & Audio
Helmet editor, livery, engine sound tool.
Settings
Display, audio, simulation and career sliders.
- Settings — Display WIP Display tab — fullscreen, vsync, FPS cap, resolution, post-processing.
- Settings — Audio WIP Audio tab — on/off switches for UI sounds, music, engine and voices, with a volume fader per family.
- Settings — Simulation WIP The Simulation tab — ~80 RaceConfig sliders organised by group, what they tune, and how to dial in your taste.
- Settings — Career WIP The Career tab — race prize total, championship purse, race distance factor, marketing scouting rate.
- Reset Defaults Planned The per-tab Reset button on the Settings screens — what it does and what it doesn't touch.
Saves
Save slots and snapshots.
Release Notes & Bugs
Per-version changelogs and the running list of known bugs.