Road to Vostok & Contractors

Hi!

I thought I write a little update on what's happening in the contractor world of Road to Vostok.

Since I'm quite busy with the AI updates and upcoming other core features like Trading System, I have tried to apply certain level of outsourcing related to Public Demo 2.

Here's the current contractor setup:

Bandit Character

Along with the AI updates, I'm planning to introduce the first custom character model in the next devlog. This character will be the first Bandit model (1/3) and one character artist is working on this specific model.

In summary, Bandits are basically hostile survivors and scavengers that roam around the game world. Bandits are not part of any specific organization and they don't have any other agenda than just surviving in Area 05. Bandits wear pretty scuffed civilian clothes and their behaviour towards you is mostly kill-on-sight because they want to steal your gear.

Impact + Flybys SFX

Public Demo 2 will have totally reworked audio elements when it comes to bullet impacts and flyby sounds. These updates will also be introduced in the next devlog and one audio designer is focusing on those.

Here's the current audio file list for those Impact + Flyby SFX:

Bullet_Impact_Wood (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Metal (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Concrete (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Dirt (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Grass (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Asphalt (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Rock (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Snow (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Water (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Body (x6)
Bullet_Impact_Target (x6)

Bullet_Supersonic_Hiss (x6)
Bullet_Subsonic_Hiss (x6)
Bullet_Light_Crack (x6)
Bullet_Medium_Crack (x6)
Bullet_Heavy_Crack (x6)

Vehicles

Few more custom vehicles will be added before Public Demo 2 and the most current vehicle that is being worked on is a truck that has multiple different trailer types.

The first addition will be a large cargo trailer which will be modular and there will be multiple locations for these. Cargo trailers will be enterable and most logical places for these will be in the Highway and Shipyard map.

There's one vehicle artist who is responsible for making these before Public Demo 2.

FPS Animations

Weapon related animations are something that need to be started early on in order to get those ready for future phases of the project. The current goal is to figure out an "indie-friendly" workflow for these animations and having all weapons animated before early access.

Even though there's a long way before early access phase, this animation pipeline needs to be tested really early on and those test animations that you have seen recently are related to this topic.

One animator from the Stalker modding community will be dedicated to this task.

Special project

There's one unique weapon project happening behind the scenes and I will explain this thing in the next devlog.

This special project requires multiple contactors (3D / animation / audio) but the benefits are worth the effort in this case.

Additional 3D-assets

Since there will be a lot of work for making those new Public Demo 2 maps, I will most likely outsource some elements that are time consuming like buildings and other detailed props.

There's one 3D-artist who has been really valuable for making these things happen and I'm pretty sure that I will provide him more responsibilities when we get closer to Public Demo 2.

So that's the current setup when it comes to contractors. It might seem that there's a lot of people working with the project but in reality there's still just me working full-time.

Contractors are really valuable and I'm more than happy to use them whenever I can afford it without taking big financial risks. Using contactors is always a balancing act each month when I decide if I want to outsource something or not. There's also a lot of time management, documentation, accounting, legal things and communication skills related to running contractors but that's just something that I will have to adapt along with the other development tasks.

The reason why I can provide these small part-time outsourcing possibilities is mostly thanks to you and your support towards the project.

- Antti (Developer)