Update 26: The Armored Executive's Debut
[p]I'm really glad folks have been enjoying the new build over the weekend, and that there were not many issues with the new goal. This build has fixes, targeting improvements, feat improvements, some air vehicle balance, and the titular new Armored Executive robot type.
My focus for the rest of the week is largely going to be on the next big content update, so this may be the only update this week -- we'll see how things go. I'm excited to get to work on that next set!
If you’ve spent time with Heart of the Machine and want to leave a review, that’d be appreciated. No need to say more than you mean, but if you’ve been meaning to write one, I’d be grateful. Steam reviews carry weight. For a project like this — developed by a single person over many years, every review makes a difference.[/p][p]Honest thoughts are what matter. Whatever your experience has been, sharing it helps. It’s a powerful way to have your voice heard and contributes to how future patches are prioritized and addressed.[/p][p]Thanks for reading and for playing.
[/p]
[expand]
[h2]Update 26 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Balance[/h3]
[/expand][p]Full notes here.
[/p][h3]Connect with the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr][p]Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:
💬 Discord – Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.
📜 Reddit – Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.[/p]
My focus for the rest of the week is largely going to be on the next big content update, so this may be the only update this week -- we'll see how things go. I'm excited to get to work on that next set!
If you’ve spent time with Heart of the Machine and want to leave a review, that’d be appreciated. No need to say more than you mean, but if you’ve been meaning to write one, I’d be grateful. Steam reviews carry weight. For a project like this — developed by a single person over many years, every review makes a difference.[/p][p]Honest thoughts are what matter. Whatever your experience has been, sharing it helps. It’s a powerful way to have your voice heard and contributes to how future patches are prioritized and addressed.[/p][p]Thanks for reading and for playing.
[/p]
[expand]
[h2]Update 26 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Balance[/h3]
- Spectre Nerfs: Spectre now has only 6 action points per turn rather than 7, and now only has 1 weapon hardpoint and 1 augment slot rather than 2 of each.
- Wraith Buffs: Wraith now has 2 augment slots rather than 1.
- Radial Menu Mouse Hitboxes: Reworked the hitboxes on the lens buttons on the radial menu, so that you don't have to aim your mouse so precisely as you did in the prior update.
- Localization Updates: A variety of text has been updated and improved for non-English languages.
- New "Armored Executive" Unit: As soon as you gain a shell company AND you are in chapter two, you now get an Armored Executive unit. The idea behind the Armored Executive is that they're an imitation unit like the PMC Impostor, but these are imitating a human executive from a small business rather than a random PMC soldier or officer.
- Talking To Human Executives: There are three locations in chapter two where, when dealing with your shell company, an executive from some other company was demanding to meet with one of your PMC Impostors, which was really confusing. Because PMC Impostors are not shell company units, but the executives wanted to talk to a human, etc. This was confusing for a number of people for a variety of reasons.
- PMC Impostor Restrictions Removed: There's no longer anything special about PMC Impostors when it comes to talking to people unrelated to your shell company. They're just like any of your other robots, in terms of being able to make those discussions.
- Feral Distraction: Feral dogs and cats are now super low priorities for enemies to shoot. So even for the jerks that will attack such a creature, they'll only do so if there's absolutely nothing else to shoot.
- Remembered Purpose: If npc units are spawned in reaction to some building, then they will give a lot of extra prioritization to that specific building and buildings of that type. They were previously able to get rather too distracted by other targets of interest.
- Focused Anger: If NPC units are spawned in relation to something scary you're doing, they now do a much better job of focusing on you and your stuff. In cases where there was a war on, sometimes they would ignore your acute threat and go off to engage their chronic enemies.
- Better Unit Cycling: When you are right-clicking to cycle through units via the "incoming attacks" notice, it now selects each unit you focus on, rather than just moving the camera to them. Previously if you already had a machine unit selected, it would not change the selection.
- Destroyed Road Exception Fix: Fixed an exception that could happen in background vehicle pathfinding if you built over roads that were destroyed.
- Destroyed Road Drivers Fix: Fixed an issue where background vehicles could still drive on roads that had been burned down but were not fully irradiated.
- Giant Spiders Are Not Human: Giant spiders are no longer accidentally logged as humans when they are killed.
- Fixes And Extensions To Feats For NPCs: Added a huge amount of new code for feats that allows for the part that is still relevant for NPCs to trigger when attacks are made, while not double-counting things like the changes to how much damage will be dealt. This makes bulks and other npcs finally able to have all of their feat logic trigger fully. Damage-based stuff like anti-aircraft was working fine, but now does stuff like the microbuilder cloud, suppression, etc.
- Covert Inoculation Retries Now Available: If you successfully finish the investigation during the Covert Inoculation project, but you fail to make enough injections, then previously it was preventing you from trying again. It now resets things so that you can try it again.
[/expand][p]Full notes here.
[/p][h3]Connect with the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr][p]Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:
💬 Discord – Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.
📜 Reddit – Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.[/p]