25 essential RoadCraft tips, tricks & secrets

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After 65+ hours of building roads, tipping over and AI babysitting, here are 25 RoadCraft tips, tricks and secrets to help you tame Mother Nature.

RoadCraft has rolled into town on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, which means it is no longer just journalists, influencers and the developers who can play the whole shebang. Complete with sizeable maps wrecked by natural disasters.

As such, I thought it was time so share some of my RoadCraft tips, tricks and secrets to help you get the best from the follow-up to SnowRunner and Expeditions: A MudRunner Game.

On with the show! Be sure to share your own wisdom in the comments for fellow truckers. Oh and subscribe and like, if you would be so kind.

RoadCraft tips: 1) Steer into tipping

Allow me to start with the basics because, trust me, the lack of a winch on most vehicles means tipping over can be more brutal and frustrating than in SnowRunner.

If it looks like you have a one-way ticket to tippy town, steer towards the lean and steer fast. Disconnect anything heavy. Cross your fingers and toes. Or you can…

2) Ninja crane

Become a legend at ninja-craning (or ninja winching if your truck has one). Because there is time between tipping over and the engine cutting out and that you can control the crane while driving if using the default control method, trucks with a crane can steer the crane in the direction of the fall and push. This has saved me numerous times.

You can also use an extended crane to act like a walking stick in particularly tippy situations. Such as this gap between a hill and abandoned plant machinery. Pre-emptively facing the crane in the right direction can be a lifesaver.

3) No ridicule for the Muel

If there is one truck worth prioritising, it is the Muel T1 Cargo Crane Truck. Though tippy, it is incredibly useful as many tasks are best served with a cargo bed and crane for deliveries. It can also handle a lot of weight and is pretty strong off-road.

The 27,000 RoadCraft credits price is cheap too. Just be sure to practice the aforementioned ninja-crane technique as it can lean a lot when carrying big cargo.

4) Handbrake is your friend

Now that gears are even less ‘manual’ than in SnowRunner and that steep uneven surfaces are everywhere in RoadCraft, the handbrake is essential. Not just to give the gears time to go from backwards to forwards or vice versa without rolling backwards, but also to help with craning stuff. Cranes might be more potent, but gravity is still a thing.

5) Be creative with trucks

For getting out of a pickle and avoiding a tedious retrace of your steps if you get stuck, learn to use every ability your truck has.

Crane anchors, for example, provide not just extra stability but can also help you get unstuck and can even bounce you up rocky ledges or out of deep mud. Though it might take some time and even some rhythmic bouncing to work. No jokes.

Trucks with any form of rotation, meanwhile, can be used to help push you along. Or, in the case of the Aramatsu Bowhead T30, point the tracks the way you want them.

Why does that matter? Because tracked vehicles steer by disabling or reducing power to one track or by making it rotate the opposite way. Neither of which is useful for getting maximum traction when the going gets tough.

Tactical trailer ramp rhythmic bouncing can also save the day. Or refill sand and dump it around you to lift up your wheels and cover obstacles in your path. Just do not do it too fast as this can launch you skyward.

You can even fully lower a dozer blade to lift up the front wheels. You would be surprised how effective these tactics can be. Kudos to the RoadCraft physics system.

6) The KHAN Lo “Strannik” slays

Another truck I would recommend using is the highly versatile Khan Lo “Stannik”.

Not only can it uproot larger trees and has a powerful winch, it can push big trucks up the right way, go just about anywhere and act as a recall point for all your trucks whether in the garage or on the map. Providing the engine is on and not flooded.

This makes it especially useful for road crafting machinery gatherings in remote areas when you need to build a road. Just remember that each vehicle recall uses up one Recovery Token (the purple icon with a number), which I will talk more about later.

To use the recall function, enter the KHAN Lo “Strannik” and press 4 or hold LB then B on Xbox. PlayStation users, check the on-screen legend as I do not currently have a PlayStation controller.

Then use the on-screen buttons to select the correct truck you want to recall to your position then hold R on PC or A on Xbox.

Alternatively, you can hop into the truck you want to recall, hold R on PC or hold up on the D-Pad on Xbox then select ‘field service vehicle’ from the list and confirm.

7) Retain for less pain

For tipping over oopsies, there is another way to save the day. Albeit one that dumps you back at a base of your choosing. Go into the map view then enter a base by hovering over it and press the garage button.

Now scroll to the vehicle you want to recall. Either indicated by a green box and person icon (if it was the last vehicle you drove) or a yellow box with a wheel if out of the garage. White means it is currently retained. Then press ‘retain’. It will appear in your garage at the base you selected.

Now you can select ‘redeploy’ to put said truck outside the base, saving you the cost of one Recovery Token. You will likely, of course, have to drive back to where you were. Plus any cargo you were carrying will have been dumped at the point of recall.

8) Piggyback trucks

Recovery Tokens, useful for something I will get to later, can be saved another way. You can use a truck with a loading ramp such as the Step 39331 “Pike” or Zikz 605E to ferry vehicles from one location to another in faster time.

Considering most trucks do not have a winch and therefore cannot do a solo convoy – SnowRunner style – this is especially useful. The bigger the trailer and truck pulling it, the bigger the vehicle you can fit or the more of them.

It does not take much RoadCraft playtime to realise that the asphalt paver and asphalt roller, two of the slowest and most terrain-fussy vehicles, should be prioritised if on road crafting duty.

Just drive carefully as vehicles cannot be strapped down as with cargo, meaning they can slide around. Or, in extreme cases, fall off.

9) Get pushy

At number nine of my 25 RoadCraft tips and tricks list, the manual function of the Kronenwerk L-34 dozer blade is not just there to smash asphalt and level sand. It is great for shoving AI vehicles when building a road or if trying to complete a route you plotted. Badly.

Nudging the AI is especially useful for when you do not want to build a complete road or even lay some sand (the effective lazy method). Or you simply want to earn the experience and money from completing a one-time route.

10) Recover Recovery Tokens

Recovery Tokens can be earned from main missions and side tasks, the rewards of which are viewable in the menu objectives tab.

Besides recalls, Recovery Tokens have another essential use. They unlock sand quarries for sand refills when building roads, sparing you back and forth deliveries.

Costing five or six Recovery Tokens per sand quarry and not transferrable between maps, it is therefore wisest to open the sand quarry in the area most useful to current and future sand-requiring tasks.

Use the map and vehicle tab to see where your current sand refill areas are, as located by a sandy coloured circle. A grey circle mean the sand quarry is not yet unlocked.

To unlock, select the sand quarry from the map then right click the mouse or press Y on Xbox. And presumably triangle on PlayStation.

11) Cargo creativity

Another useful tip is that you can put cargo on just about anything. Providing, in some cases, you are happy not being able to strap the load. And can pick up the cargo.

Log forwarders, for instance, work well for Steel Beams. This can save the need to buy multiple vehicles and make life easier if you prefer the way a particular truck handles. Or that it can carry more.

Or if you have a dedicated crane truck nearby, put cargo on sand trucks such as the Aramatsu Bowhead T30 or Baikal 65-206 as these typically have a large and deep bed for flat items such as Concrete Slabs and are especially stable.

If the task requires you to deliver to a yellow unloading area such as one for building a bridge, as opposed to a blue icon with a translucent version of said cargo, you can simply drive into the box and your un-secured load will off-load automatically.

12) Get to the point

Crane knowledge time: Unlike in SnowRunner, you can toggle between multi-point and single-point attachment. To do so, press 5 on PC or hold RB then A on Xbox.

Multi-point is better for loading a truck upright or putting items on a cargo bed. Single-point, meanwhile, can save the day when pulling a vehicle out of a ditch or for moving cargo to somewhere you can more easily reach. Or, if stuck, you can secure to heavy objects and use it like a winch.

13) Unlock the Zikz 605E

Now, remember I said it can be wise to use transport vehicles? One of the best for the job comes in the form of the Zikz 605E. You can unlock one for free in the map called Sunken by clearing the port. To do that involves some big crane work – nothing too difficult.

14) Bigger is better (for recycling)

While you may have to gather metal or concrete using whatever is available, it is usually fastest to recycle the largest items you can. Tractors and cars can be craned onto the cargo bed of the Muel T1, for example. Instead of barrels and fence panels.

When you get access to bigger cranes and more powerful trucks such as the Zikz 612C, you can drag super large items such as those giant pipes (lol). Less crane tedium for the win.

15) Pipe for a pipe

At number 15 in my RoadCraft tips and tricks, remember to remove the old pipe first. Sometimes the coloured indicator will make it harder to see the old pipe first before fitting a new one. Yes, I was an idiot.

16) Help is at sand

For when there is no nearby sand quarry, you can ensure a supply of the essential road-building ingredient another way. Use a truck that can generate or share sand with nearby trucks and have it run back and forth.

One truck with this ability is the pre-order Aramatsu Bowhead T30, with a refill radius of 30 metres. Just get in range with another sand-loading truck and hit the ‘refill sand’ button. Down on a console D-pad or G on keyboard.

Another sand-sharing truck is the Zikz 605E Mobile Scalper unlocked at rank 12 for 65,000 RoadCraft credits. While it cannot deliver or lay sand itself, it acts as a mobile sand quarry for other trucks, with a radius of 140 metres (but no sand radius icon at the time of making this video).

Simply drive on top of a source of sand. Then activate the screener (1 on PC or hold LB then A on Xbox). If it does not deploy, you need to find a better source such as a beach. Easy in desert biome maps such as Sojourn, not so easy elsewhere.

17) Scout about

Another handy tip is to scout maps. In SnowRunner you could do it effectively in most trucks because most had winches – just usually not the scout-based autonomous version that works when you tip over.

In RoadCraft, it is not just the lack of a winch that makes scouts and scouting essential. Certain routes can only be seen as passable or impassable for you or the AI by visiting while many areas are strewn with chunky debris and accessible only by thin ramps and gaps.

Scouting is also useful because it lets you find new sand quarries and locate other bases you can deploy vehicles from and retain vehicles to. They also have an in-built object scanner for resource location and finding specific quest items and can scan the terrain to check for terrain conditions such as deep and sticky mud.

The Armiger Thunder SAR is what you start in and can go most places. But for added winch range, winch strength, scanner range and off-roading prowess, you should unlock the TUZ 119 “Lynx” in the later Deluge map.

Or purchase a scout from the vehicle shop. Click on each vehicle to see its respective stats to make a more informed choice. Or just pick the one you think looks coolest.

18) Magic storage

Now we get to a particularly useful tip. Bases have resource storage, as indicated by two nearby yellow boxes. Here you can deliver cargo and use it elsewhere at another base – potentially saving you a lot of delivery driving.

Simply take the cargo you want to move between bases and dump it in the loading zone. This is the larger yellow box of the two with four arrows. The yellow flashing icon will indicate you can now unstrap or disconnect the cargo from the winch or crane to store.

Be careful not to drive through the dropzone with freshly loaded unstrapped cargo as it will be returned. Learned that the hard way.

To retrieve your stored items at a base, drive up to the smaller yellow box with one arrow and then press the relevant button – F on PC or A on Xbox – to access resource storage. Scroll up and down to choose the resources you want then press the same button again to deliver it.

Your chosen cargo will be offloaded in the smaller box so be sure to park outside it.

I was hoping there is a way to park your truck so that items deliver straight to a cargo bed or trailer. However, so far my attempts have been unsuccessful. No automatic cargo loading like in SnowRunner for us, then.

19) Look from above

Next, the view from your truck may not show you how to navigate waterways. Particularly the flooded areas of the Deluge map. Fortunately, there is a sneaky trick that might not be obvious. Use the map and look from above, as RoadCraft makes these hidden watery paths clear.

20) Branch out

Another one for truckers who cannot be bothered to retrieve the stump mulcher: Dozers and large enough trucks can uproot pesky tree stumps. Drive at them or bury the blade and then push and lift. Voila! Farewell, Amur-based misery.

21) Not all shortcuts are short

As I said in my RoadCraft first impressions video, it can be tempting to take a shortcut or get the AI to try. However, these momentary attempts at saving time can actually cost you more in rescue effort when they usually go wrong. Do it right and do it once, as the saying goes.

22) Construction Depot dependency

Also unlockable in RoadCraft are Construction Depots. These are great if you need components and have RoadCraft credits to burn. Because here you can buy whatever you need and have it delivered nearby.

Concrete Slabs, Logs, Steel Beams, Steel Pipes and Fuel AKA Recovery Tokens are available while items you no longer need can be sold back. Just get close enough to the yellow and green squares, press F on PC or equivalent to open the shop then press the same again to dispense at the listed price.

Just make sure the item you want to sell is in the green box then open the menu and press T or equivalent to sell. It must not be strapped to a bed or attached to a winch or crane to work.

23) Tarmac + cable = no

One thing you may have noticed when trying to join buildings and power stations to restore power is that you cannot lay electrical cable everywhere. Besides steep hills being an issue for the Vostok TK-53 “Krot” you get early on, pre-laid roads and certain types of gravel cannot be broken.

Yes, you cannot even bust out the Kronenwerk L-34 and use the asphalt destruction option. Instead, find a route round – easier said than done, mind you.

24) Bring a friend

With so many tasks requiring sizeable deliveries, I think RoadCraft is best served with multiplayer. Cross-play for up to four players is a thing, so get the person who needs help or perhaps has the most progress to load up a save.

Then go into the general menu by hitting escape on PC or start on console, then select multiplayer. Here you can adjust the permissions, set the number of players and provide a password to those who you want to join and away you go.

On Steam, you will need to launch the separate EOS client to make it work with those who bought RoadCraft via the Epic Games store.

25) Find and sell toys

To finish, we end on a little secret. Seen those little toy trucks around the map such as on the trailer in the swamp in the RoadCraft demo? Well, these can be retrieved and sold at a Construction Depot for a decent sum of money.

These mini trucks are quite cute though so you could consider stockpiling them by using the winch. Maybe they can be stored as a resource so they are on display at all bases? Feel free to find out.

On that note, thank you for watching/viewing. Be sure to like and subscribe. Remember to share your own RoadCraft tips, tricks and secrets in the comments.