Update 46: Obsession For A Friend
[p]Second update of the day! That sort of cadence pretty much only happens right after a game launch or during a sprint. This is a sprint.
There's some new features in here, and a fix that I wanted to get out sooner than later.
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 46 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]New Features[/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]
There's some new features in here, and a fix that I wanted to get out sooner than later.
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 46 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]New Features[/h3]
- Loathsomeness: All of the structures that you can build now have a Loathsomeness rating from 0 to 10. There is an analysis lens option that shows you these values on the map. This is largely going to be for how independent third parties would reasonably feel about what you're building. Primarily the space nations. Under normal circumstances, this doesn't do anything at all. For the upcoming Interstellar Incident and Stars Beyond Reach T2/T3 goals, it's going to matter quite a bit, though.
- BETA: Second Branch Of Civil Spycraft Act 2 Now Available: The "just hack it" route when talking to a character in the beta branch, during act two of civil spycraft, is now available for beta testing. This involves the second Obsession in the game, which is something people have been asking for for a while.
- Beta Branch On Steam: The beta branch for the game no longer requires a password. This makes it a lot easier to opt in if you want to.
- Managerial Living: Dramatically redistributed where the housing for managerial class residents are in the city. They still work in the same variety of locations, but they have now moved out of mixed-use structures, military bases, farms, and the suburbs. They're now much more concentrated in executive estates and other similar high rises, plus luxury apartments. Thematically, this actually makes them a lot safer from the common people, even compared to the scientist class, because it keeps them from being spread out into so many low-density locations that would be hard for the usual soldiers and robotic guards to protect. The total number of spots holding managers has condensed from 2000+ to more like 500, for example. Gameplay-wise, cough, kind of the opposite is true. If anyone were ever to do something to the managerial class, hypothetically, then it would take less time because there would only be a quarter as many spots to go.
- "Scaling Up Microbuilders" Limited To Slums Obsession: This contemplation now only happens during the "Frustration Mounts" project, not during any obsession in general. That's explicitly related to that project, so it only makes sense there.
- Serial Brain Surgery: Now that there are multiple obsessions: if you previously used brain surgery in a timeline to forget something during an obsession, then you can't forget that same thing again to end a new obsession.
- Missing Middle Managers: Fixed an issue where if you were trying to approach the espia telecom managers, but you had previously killed 5 or more wealthy people in the "people watching" project, then it wouldn't work.
[/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]