Discord Q&A Summary with the devs

​Hello Builders!

Last week, we organized a Q&A session on our RoadCraft Discord channel to tackle your questions directly with the devs.

In this transcript, you'll find a series of questions and detailed responses from Vitaliy Y., Game Director on RoadCraft, and Ivan K., Production Lead on the game.

Your questions mostly focused on gameplay features and the development progress of RoadCraft. Our developers addressed as many of them as possible, particularly the ones you asked most frequently, such as those about excavators, crane controls or fuel management.

Let’s get started!

❓ Q: Is there a possibility of a Hard Mode later after launch with fuel management and damage? (@Vic502)
✅ A (V.Y.): Absolutely🙂

❓ Q: Can you give the Steam Roller an "Activate" function so that it's not constantly rolling roads when being moved around? There are times when there's no need to put it on the back of the flatbed, but I don't want it to keep trying to flatten roads, as it's actually making it more uneven when you roll over different spots. (@Shoresy (20AER))
✅ A (V.Y.): That's actually a very good suggestion, thanks! Definitely writing it down.

❓ Q: In the same way that we can pour sand, can we pick it up? What happens if we accidentally pour sand where we don't want it? (@Kerman)
✅ A (V.Y.): Well, you can move it around with the dozer. If you pour sand somewhere, it, well, stays there. But you can work around it, of course. To a degree.

❓ Q: Can you transport cargo yourself, or do you always have to use bots? (@Vic502)
✅ A (V.Y.): You can transport cargo yourself. You can opt to use automated vehicles in some (well, in most) scenarios.

❓ Q: Will there be farming? (@Julian Wolf)

✅ A (V.Y.): If the community feels like farming, we'll see what we can do^^

❓ Q: Will there be mining? (Quarry, etc.) (@Some Thing)
✅ A (V.Y.): Same as with farming, if the community feels like it at some point, we'll see what we can do.

❓ Q: So this game is not meant for off-roading? More geared towards construction? (@RosenRot)
✅ A (V.Y.): This is a construction sandbox (simcade, if you like) that has off-roading elements, but it is not intended as an off-roading-first game.

❓ Q: Can you explain a little bit what you already tested about fuel management and why you decided not to include it in this game? (@DJbarro)
✅ A: It would be a long talk. We'll get to it in a future dev blog, I promise.

❓ Q: Can we secure asphalt layers, rollers, etc., onto transport vehicles so they don't fall off so easily? (@Rockrai)
✅ A (V.Y.): We're actively working on this feature.

❓ Q: I hope the map editors allow us to make real quarries, the ones with huge trucks that would make you go bankrupt if you buy one. (@EzioMaverick)
✅ A (I.K.): Hm, the technical ability to do this in Mod Editor, I think, is present. I would definitely look at that kind of mod🙂

❓ Q: Will the NPC drivers be used for automatic resource gathering? (@Isekai Express)
✅ A (V.Y.): Yes and no? So they will not "gather" resources around the map for you, but they will transport them so you get values out of them in autonomous mode.

❓ Q: Will there be snow regions in future updates? (@Isekai Express)
✅ A (V.Y.): We're not disclosing our plans for live as of rn😉 However, we have a lot of different options in mind, all will depend on how the game performs.

❓ Q: Will the sand for road laying be changed to gravel for realism purposes? (@k3v)
✅ A (V.Y.): There is even a story in here: We've played with gravel a little bit in the prototype stage of the game (maybe we'll show pictures somewhere... in the dev blog for example?) and there was that problem called "a player can make a pie of very different things of sand, asphalt and gravel” (and I think we had something else even). Aaaaand we couldn't make it look good at all. It was always a hot mess of different layers of the pie. So, yeah, gravel is more realistic, but for historical reasons there is sand now. We will definitely look into it for the future.

❓ Q: Is there Night time? Most of the roadwork happens during the night, so is there any way to play during nighttime in-game, with lights, halogens? (@EzioMaverick)
✅ A (V.Y.): Nighttime was in the plans, but we stumbled into a technical problem, which we had to work around. Basically, we could make it work, but we would not run the game on consoles if we did. So, for the moment, nighttime is out of current scope, unfortunately. But we'll see how it goes.

❓ Q: In SnowRunner the mud mechanics were a bit more punishing overall than in RoadCraft demo... Is this because there were missing features during the gameplay in the demo? I'm curious to know if driving through hard mud would be harder in RoadCraft like it is on SnowRunner or I can expect it to be just like the demo. (@Crusaya)
✅ A (V.Y.): So it's a bit of a personal taste thing, but generally speaking, the mud in RoadCraft is less of a danger as opposed to SnowRunner. It's still a hazard to a degree, it still provides some level of challenge, and you still can "die" there if you are not cautious. However, it's not like the mud gives you an Amur level challenge here, yes.

❓ Q: Is fish getting added to the bodies of water in the game? (@aleak)
✅ A (I.K.): It's a huge missed opportunity on our part that there are none! However, there are BEES in the game! Was my little gestalt, to be honest (don't even ask, ha ha).

❓ Q: Will there be any wildlife? Specifically foxes?☺️ (@Местная Лиса)
✅ A (I.K.): At the time of release, there will be bees, dragonflies, and flies and if I'm not mistaking something, unfortunately - that's it. But we can see that players have an interest in it, we will definitely think about what we could do in the future.

❓ Q: Is it just sand, sand and more sand for roads or do you plan to bring a more complex structure of aggregates? (@Ning)
✅ A (V.Y.): Right now, it's sand, wood, and asphalt. And after that, it's that line about the future holding different things we do not yet see.

❓ Q: Can we paint lines on roads? (@𝐓𝐨𝐛𝐲™)
✅ A (V.Y.): One of the top "requested features" for the future. We even have a function deep somewhere called "Road beautification". But that's all I will say at the moment😉

❓ Q: Will there be dirty asphalt when you drive onto it from the mud? And how about a street sweeper that can clean these tracks and remove accidentally spilled sand? (@LetsPlayOnkel)
✅ A: I believe there should be dirt trails from the dirt vehicle right now. Might be a bug, will investigate. As for the "broom vehicle", it's a good idea, yeah, will look into it as mentioned above. 

❓ Q: Will there be gas stations even if they are just non-working locations? (@Julian wolf)
✅ A (V.Y.): There are a lot of gas stations in the game right now. For some reason.

❓ Q: Will we see any sort of underground locations or simple tunnels on any of the maps? (@Antex)
✅ A (V.Y.): I once said that there will never be tunnels in any of those games with active terrain deformation, because of the insanity of the technological task in there. So I'll refrain from giving a positive answer here.

❓ Q: Are transport vehicles controlled by bots only used for certain specific tasks, as in Mission 2 of the demo version? Or can players decide for themselves how resources will be transported? (@娜可莎依露)
✅ A (V.Y.): So those "automated drivers" are used in an "objective dependent" way, yes. We were, again, playing a lot with providing the player the ability to do more things with them, but the UI became more and more crumbled with the info on those automated trucks. Ultimately, "we're not a tactical strategy about trucks" logic was applied and they were made "objective dependent". However, we still feel there is additional potential in them, and this may change in the future. But yeah, no exact plans right now.

❓ Q: Are there plans for older construction vehicles? Ones from the 40s to the 60s or 70s? (@Eetu3097)
✅ A (V.Y.): I personally love the aesthetics of older vehicles (including trucks, including gms and 9500 in particular). We'll see what can be done with this thought.

❓ Q: Will other trucks receive a winch? (@Julian wolf)
✅ A (V.Y.): More trucks will have a winch, but not all of them. You'll see.

❓ Q: I really like the approach of the game, and it’s not trying to copy Construction simulator. But I miss a few things:
 1/ will there be licensed machinery (real dozers etc)?
 2/ can you load dump trucks yourself (with a loader or an excavator)?
 3/ The flattening of the sand/soil takes not a lot effort, will this be improved?
Thanks! (@PieterDJ)
✅ A (V.Y.): Thanks! Great to hear 🙂
1/ For licensing i will require our publishing team assistance, sorry. (Publisher’s note: there won’t be licensed vehicles at launch, but we’ll see if it’s possible to add during the lifespan of the game)
2/ Not at the moment, unfortunately. But I already get a common vibe from the questions and will look into it. Not on release, but yeah, we'll research.
3/ If you decide to flatten a big area, yeah, this will definitely take a lot of time and effort, due to the physicalised nature of our terrain. Maybe we'll figure something out later, as of rn, it will, yeah, be a bit hardcore to do)

❓ Q: I understand the engine limitations, but excavators do have more roles than just digging: filling up dump trucks with rubble/waste, drilling attachments to take down old structures, concrete buildings…
They can do a lot more than dig, so is there any possibility of bringing them into the game by assigning them the roles mentioned above? Like filling the trucks with sand at the quarry? (@EzioMaverick)
✅ A (V.Y.): Just putting an excavator in the game is possible of course. I just think that if we do that and say "yes, you can have an excavator, no it can not dig the terrain", we will be in big trouble.. But you have a point, we'll look into this.

❓ Q: It's a bit disappointing to see that trailers aren't going to be removable in RoadCraft. I do hope that it comes in the future, as it's a severe limit in modding. This does bring up other questions though:

• In what ways is customization of other trucks limited? For example, in Snowrunner and Expeditions now, players and modders have the option for things such as bumpers, frame addons, etc. Are these, even if in limited capacity, still available on RoadCraft?

• Will there be template vehicle models available for RoadCraft for us to reference when making our mods? Such as how to make tracks functional, integrate cranes/dump trucks, etc? (@DIESELADDICT66)
✅ A (V.Y.): I have no answers regarding vehicle modding at the moment. Like, at all, it's deep in the works for now. What i can say is that as soon as it will be ready to be shown (in beta, simply put) we will most likely open it up for modders to mess around and put their requests, so we can try to come up with something, that fits your needs.

❓ Q: I think everyone noticed the amazing large shovel excavators on the maps. We saw one at a hole with exposed pipes on the forest map of the demo. Will there eventually be the typical shovel excavators that you can use to remove soil or dig holes to repair underground pipes? (@LetsPlayOnkel)
✅ A (V.Y.): Short answer: unfortunately no excavators. It's not that we're greedy or something, we’d love to have excavators! However right now, due to our terrain tech constraints we can only dig some of the ground. Not much, if I recall correctly it's about 3-4 meters? So technically, we could add excavators, but they would not have much to do.

❓ Q: Will there be trains as vehicles in game at some point? (@Isekai Express)
✅ A (V.Y): Trains? I like trains.

❓ Q: If there is no fuel system (for vehicles) why do vehicles have the option to toggle awd? As there would be no reason to ever have it off (@𝐓𝐨𝐛𝐲™)

✅ A (V.Y.) : We'll most likely cover the whole story behind the fuel system somewhere else (devblog?) But in short: fuel was in the game, hence the AWD diff lock thingies. Then we played with it. Most of the design department felt it was meh and added a lot of fuss to the process. At the moment we couldn't come up with a solution to lessen the fuss and still have fun with the system) I guess, seeing the reaction to the absence of the fuel system has already provided some motivation to make it work in some shape or form) So yeah, we're actively thinking of "making it available to people who actually enjoy it".

❓ Q: The preorder bonuses (Like the Aramatsu) can actually do a 360° turn like its real life variant?

About the new maps and activities... I can expect it to be like Snowrunner seasons in terms of content?
✅ A (V.Y.): Of course, it can!

As for new maps and activities, well, it's still very different from Snowrunner, but the principle is close enough.

❓ Q: Will there be detachable trailers for vehicles? (@Isekai Express)
✅ A (V.Y.): As of right now, detachable trailers are not in the game, unfortunately. But maybe later we can come up with something.

❓ Q: Will you rework the crane controls to resemble more what is done in Snowrunner? As in, switch to a "crane mode", then "driving mode", and such. (@DJbarro)
✅ A (V.Y.): Alternative crane control scheme is in the works right now.

❓ Q: Will you offer exclusive vehicle DLCs for other games, if you own them? I'd love to have the Proseka for Snowrunner if I own Roadcraft or Unimog, if I own Expeditions. (@Isekai Express)
✅ A (V.Y.): The vehicles in all those games are done very differently at the moment, we're unable to just share them between projects. The tris number in Rc is 1.5 times higher for most of the "simple" vehicles (like scouts) i believe. And it's just the beginning of the long list of differences.

❓ Q: Excavators are a bit difficult as I understand, but wheel loaders would be a nice addition for loading, but also to flatten and reposition material. Something you guys would consider? (@PieterDJ)
✅ A (V.Y.): Okay okay, we'll look into the possibility of handloading sand, I get that a lot of people definitely want it.

❓ Q: Are retaining walls in the planning or a possibility? Would be nice to build up some overpasses and give a good base for bridges. (@jaybird)
✅ A (V.Y.): It would be nice indeed😉

❓ Q: Can we delete bridges that are already in the map 🙂 (@tinath 64)
✅ A (I.K.): Only the ones you built yourself.

❓ Q: To add to this comment for a simple question. A new terraforming feature, the ability to dig/excavate anywhere? Not simply restricted to an excavator. Will it possibly be added in the future? (@uklynk)
✅ A (V.Y.): Well, you can dig anywhere (excluding water, large concrete structures and other natural blockers). Just not that far, that's the thing. Possibility of going further than that… Well, we'll see how it goes!

❓ Q: What's the chances of being able to relocate the choppable trees? (Usecase: I don't need the logs and I'd like to move some trees to make a tree-lined road) (@Shoresy (20AER))
✅ A (I.K.): Unfortunately, there is no such feature on the release, however your idea sounds very interesting!

❓ Q: Are there any plans for more objects to build, in the same function as bridges... like fencing? I'd definitely like to do some sort of concrete barrier, metal guardrail and/or light wooden fencing (@Shoresy (20AER))
✅ A (V.Y.): Someday maybe😉

❓ Q: Will I be able to clean up randomly scattered piles of sand? (@BaziLik)
✅ A (V.Y.): You will definitely be able to flatten them into the ground.

❓ Q: But what if I accidentally poured sand into the river, but I wanted a bridge? (@BaziLik)
✅ A (V.Y.): Well, that's an interesting edge case. Guess in that exact scenario you will have to make a landbridge, or get used to a little bit of sand in the river. But I see your point.

❓ Q: In the demo it often happened that the sand accidentally got on the asphalt. Will it be possible in the full game to remove the sand with a broom or something similar because then straightening it out and paving it again is quite difficult and tedious. (@BigKek)
✅ A (V.Y.): That's a good point, we'll come up with something.

❓ Q: Will concrete be a usable material? i.e. does the game include laying, hauling, and storing concrete? (@Sharecropper27)
✅ A (V.Y.): Let's put an answer like "it's a reasonable request”. Basically, maybe 🙂

❓ Q: The FAQ says the map editor should come soon after release, this could mean many months after release. In the RoadCraft chat channel there was some confusion about it, like that it could arrive day 1 at release. Are there any more details you can share about the "Map Editor"(i dont care about vehicles mods) and when it would ideally be in the hands of players? (@123man)

✅ A (V.Y.): Yes, we will have mod support at launch, but only maps. Mod launcher will of course be in the game in some shape or form. A bit different to SnowRunner, due to different mod platform. The editor is in active testing right now. Theoretically you will be able to build anything that we can build here in house in terms of level design. I'm not committing to any dates here of course, but you should be able to do so very soon(tm).
For vehicle modding, we are working on a solution for modding vehicles.

❓ Q: How long will this game be receiving content support for? (@Местная Лиса)
✅ A (V.Y.): Well, as long as there are people enjoying the game, there will be support!
As you may have already seen on our other projects, we understand that live support is important and we do not intend to change this.

❓ Q: Have you noticed that when you place bridges, huge holes sometimes appear that you can't fill with sand, and you always get bad bumps there. Will this be fixed before release?
And a big problem is player synchronization in co-op sessions. Large holes in the asphalt and more. (@BigKek)
✅ A (I.K.): Yes, we have seen these problems, we are actively fixing them.

❓ Q: What are the expected differences between the Release and Demo versions, apart from the available content? What are the gameplay mechanical differences? (@Choptimist)
✅ A (V.Y.): There are a lot. As an example, there are no things connected to progression in the demo, where you can buy and sell vehicles and expand your fleet.
Demo was all about short minute-to-minute gameplay, we could not come up with a solution to put all mechanics in it unfortunately.

❓ Q: All folks before me said almost all things that i had in mind but i will add just this one annoying thing: Any chance to fix bug with logitech g29 wheel, it conflicts with mouse movements on PC, so when ever you move mouse to move camera, wheel gets crazy or stops working (@Sarajlija)
✅ A (V.Y.): All the wheels are in active debugging right now, there are a couple of "big" issues with them. But should be alright by release, our hardware support team does everything it can at the moment.

❓ Q: The performance in Roadcraft was far worse than Snowrunner (I know there are plenty of systems that make the game harder memory wise)... The game already received performance optimizations that I can expect my experience during release to be similar? Or will there be more performance optimizations in the future? (@Crusaya)
✅ A (I.K.): No, the experience will be different, performance optimization is underway and will continue after release.
Unfortunately, the demo is a slightly outdated slice of our game from about 4 months ago.
Full scale work on the performance started after the demo version was created.
As of now I like the FPS numbers a bunch more 🙂

❓ Q: I see a bug, when you build a bridge, you can't put sand against it, or on map rocks, will it evolve? (@Tolinx21)
✅ A (V.Y.): So technically you can place sand only on "terrain".

The long explanation is, well, long, so in short: the sand you pour is from the very beginning a part of terrain itself (which does not include any "geometry" like bridges, buildings etc.
so...it may evolve, but not right now, unfortunately.

❓ Q: Do you plan to open a public beta test server like the other games? (@DJbarro)
✅ A (V.Y.): We didn't think of it as of yet. We'll see, I guess. If there is a place for it, then why not.

❓ Q: Does roadCraft use Swarm engine as SnowRunner and Expeditions? (@masterzone)
✅ A (V.Y.): Roadcraft does use Swarm Engine. Snowrunner and Expeditions do not.

 This is a common idea btw, not sure where it came from.

❓ Q: What do they use then? As the Swarm was said to be used in SnowRunner during its promotional campaign, utilising technology made for the WWZ game. (@Nextej)
✅ A (V.Y.): It was indeed utilizing some of the technology made for WWZ. It's a long and separate topic (maybe another one for a devblog).
In short - it's a proprietary engine that has parts of Swarm, of previous Saber tech, of the original Mudrunner code. It's a big hulking combination of different technologies. Swarm was extensively used for rendering, for example.
So there is no simple answer to the question "What engine does Snowrunner use", because it's kinda a mashup of different proprietary technologies and engines. It had its positives. And negatives.

❓ Q: Will there be multiple save slots like SnowRunner/Expeditions ? (@Tolinx21)
✅ A (I.K.): Yes!

❓ Q: Will there be a free demo on consoles, and will the game run on consoles in 4K resolution & 60FPS? (@Kacper G)
✅ A (I.K.): Unfortunately no, we have no plans to port the demo on consoles at the moment, we're fully focused on the upcoming release.
As for the performance - we're doing our best to give you the best experience (FPS) possible.

❓ Q: Will there be a PS5 PRO version? (@AndyRush)
✅ A (I.K.): Yes, we're working on it 🙂

❓ Q: Will i be able to get more than 50fps playing this game on my AMD system (@4)
✅ A (V.Y.): You absolutely should. Depends on the rest of the system of course; but yes.

❓ Q: Would you consider boosting the audio of vehicles engines by about 10% and horns by 15-20%? (@LittleBird)
✅ A (V.Y.): We are thinking in the direction of providing the player with the ability to tune those sounds by themselves. It is out of scope for the moment, but we will definitely come back to it in the future.

❓ Q: Will the game engine allow you to give us more types of missions? Buildings construction, tree planting etc...? (@DKADIz)
✅ A (V.Y.): Well, tree planting is a new one, definitely.
There are a lot of different objectives in the game right now. I’m not even sure what the number is, but it totally has two zeroes in it and may have three.
But we'll definitely be adding more objectives and objective types during live support!

❓ Q: Will a text chat be added to the game for communication (@aleak)
✅ A (I.K.): We had no such plan for the release, however, I think anything is possible for post-release.

❓ Q: What about voice chat when in coop? (@Downy gooter)
✅ A (I.K.): Yes, it's present and it's even in the demo already 🙂

❓ Q: Will co-op progress be saved for all players? (@Mobino)
✅ A (V.Y.): There will be an option to save or not save your co-op progress.

❓ Q: Please provide more detail on the co-op progress. Is it the same as previous games? I don’t want to have to do missions twice… (@Mobino)
✅ A (I.K.): No, this is different from previous projects (SnowRunner in particular).
In RoadCraft, after playing co-op and leaving a session, everyone will be offered the option to save or discard the progress that was made in co-op.
If you save, the state of that map you played will be remembered and you will not need to go through all the quests again. If the map is further down the progression and not yet available to you, you will get all the progress when you reach it by yourself.

❓ Q: Will there be hosted servers? Where any player invited to it might be able to log in to it and do stuff whilst the host is not online? A shared experience that's persistent? (@Shoresy (20AER))
✅ A (V.Y.): P2P networking in that one, sorry. Servers are out of scope at the moment.

❓ Q: Will the game have crossplay? (@cj6767)
✅ A (V.Y.): Yes.

❓ Q: Does RoadCraft take place in a parallel universe to the SnowRunner universe or is it within the SnowRunner universe? (@IndexOutOfBounds)
✅ A (V.Y.): Yeah, I already see those headings "Game director confirms they are the same universe!"
They share some things, let's put it this way. Our vehicle brands for example: you will still be able to see Khan and Azov.

❓ Q: My main questions:
1/ Will the sounds of driving be fixed for all vehicles? (when you drive forward, for example, on a scout, there is no sound of acceleration).
2/ Will the sharp turn of tracked vehicles be fixed? The way the turn happens now, it is not realistic, it is too sharp.
3/ Will you give the ability to change the type of third-person camera, I did not like the camera you showed in the demo.
4/ Will there be an option to ENABLE DAMAGE in the custom game settings?
5/ Will you add the ability to put your own marks on the map?
6/ Will there be an option to break more objects, like fences, etc? (@Nikas)
✅ A (V.Y.): Hey, I hope I have some main answers:)
1/ Sounds should be fixed of course, we still had a lot of bugs at that time.
2/ We will look into sharp turning vehicles, I get the point about their realistic behavior. It may be a current track-system-side problem, but yeah, we'll see what we can do there.
3/ The ability to change camera is present. Also present in demo.
4/ Damage is out of scope, unfortunately.
5/ You can put marks on the map.
6/ You can break some objects. Not all. Some. Well, we're building things, not breaking things.

❓ Q: Will you add a collision sound? (@Tolinx21)
✅ A (I.K.): The sounds of interaction between physical objects?
We are working on it, but unfortunately it's not that simple, it's not just the lack of sounds, it's the problem of needing to refine the system for recognizing the interaction between physical objects.
Some parts of the problems we want to solve by release, but some things we will fix after release.

❓ Q: Will there be functional mirrors? Weather controls, time of day controls? (@EzioMaverick)
✅ A (V.Y.): Functional mirrors are in the game right now. They were deactivated for demo (for optimization reasons) So yes, they are working of course.
Weather controls or time of day controls are not in the game at the moment, but is a good idea, we'll think of doing something with it.

❓ Q: Will there be a PS5 PRO version? (@AndyRush)
✅ A (I.K.): Yes, we're working on it 🙂

❓ Q: Would you consider boosting the audio of vehicles engines by about 10% and horns by 15-20%? (@LittleBird)
✅ A (V.Y.): We are thinking in the direction of providing the player with the ability to tune those sounds by themselves. It is out of scope for the moment, but we will definitely come back to it in the future.

❓ Q: Will we be able to customize our driver's avatar in RoadCraft? (@Rrari)
✅ A (V.Y.): No, unfortunately not. But...ah, I was never good at hints… "Let's see what the future holds!"

❓ Q: On the topic of achievements/trophies, how many of them will be available at launch? And will there be a list published at some point before release so we can get a glimpse of what’s in store for us achievement hunters? (@Lynn)
✅ A (I.K.): Let me share a little inside information on this matter before we finish 🙂
At some point, I made a small mistake and didn't keep a "close eye" on our designers... and they created a significant number of tough and hardcore achievements.
The main thing is that some of them are quite challenging for devs too — they were difficult to implement and test (some of them are "loved" by our QA with a special kind of affection 🙂 — so I hope all this effort wasn’t in vain and that you’ll appreciate it!

The game will have 44 achievements.
But we don’t plan to publish the list in advance.

Thanks Builders! 

Thank you all for joining us during the Discord live Q&A and for sharing your thoughts and questions! 

Your participation and feedback are incredibly valuable and help us shape the final game. You're a big part of making RoadCraft even better!