Major Update 50: Complexity Management
[p]This is a very exciting update for me! I've been doodling designs for this build for 4+ months, but it always seemed like a huge undertaking, and I was also worried that giving these sorts of "complexity reduction" options would strip away parts of the soul of the game. I'm happy to report that, having actually implemented it, I don't think it harms the game at all.
First of all -- of course you can keep playing the game the way you always have. But there are a number of key areas that bothered some players (I counted six areas in all), and so there are now options to make those parts of the game simpler. For the people who bounced off the game because of the complexity, or who didn't like the resource management, I hope this will make the game something they can now enjoy.
There's also the hope that this opens the door at least somewhat to players who are just interested in the story, but aren't really strategy gamers. I'm not sure if this really gets it all the way in that direction, but... maybe? That's the sort of thing that I really can't evaluate without feedback from players of that type.
Speaking of feedback, this is the sort of addition I never would have made without player feedback. It's been mainly the negative reviews, but also a number of the positive ones (I like it despite xyz) that helped shape how this turned out. This isn't the sort of thing that comes up on discord or even the steam forums. I'm incredibly grateful for that feedback, as I think this will open up the game to a wider group of people.
With this done, I've only got a few more big things to focus on before 1.0. The big things are of course the Tier 3 endings. But there's also the second path through chapter one, which I hope to also have done this week. With that done, I can just focus on the T3s for the rest of the month.
Last note: the complexity/accessibility options are only available in English for about another week or so. They need to go through the localization process, but I wanted to get it into the hands of players to test in the meantime.
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]Major Update 50 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Complexity/Accessibility Modes[/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]
First of all -- of course you can keep playing the game the way you always have. But there are a number of key areas that bothered some players (I counted six areas in all), and so there are now options to make those parts of the game simpler. For the people who bounced off the game because of the complexity, or who didn't like the resource management, I hope this will make the game something they can now enjoy.
There's also the hope that this opens the door at least somewhat to players who are just interested in the story, but aren't really strategy gamers. I'm not sure if this really gets it all the way in that direction, but... maybe? That's the sort of thing that I really can't evaluate without feedback from players of that type.
Speaking of feedback, this is the sort of addition I never would have made without player feedback. It's been mainly the negative reviews, but also a number of the positive ones (I like it despite xyz) that helped shape how this turned out. This isn't the sort of thing that comes up on discord or even the steam forums. I'm incredibly grateful for that feedback, as I think this will open up the game to a wider group of people.
With this done, I've only got a few more big things to focus on before 1.0. The big things are of course the Tier 3 endings. But there's also the second path through chapter one, which I hope to also have done this week. With that done, I can just focus on the T3s for the rest of the month.
Last note: the complexity/accessibility options are only available in English for about another week or so. They need to go through the localization process, but I wanted to get it into the hands of players to test in the meantime.
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]Major Update 50 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Complexity/Accessibility Modes[/h3]
- Change Complexity Now?: Whenever you are in a new timeline beyond chapter 1, or if you've reached the part of chapter 1 where it asks you to build neuroweave factories, there is now a task popup that asks if you want to customize the complexity of the game.
- Change Complexity Any Time: You can also change the complexity at any time from the system menu in the game. It is labeled "Complexity/Accessibility."
- Story Mode, In Parts: The idea here is that you can simplify certain aspects of the game if you're not into some parts of it. Rather than just having a singular "story mode," this allows you to choose a bit more granularly, without getting too much into the details.
- Achievements And Difficulty Levels: Simplifying complexity has no impact on achievements, and these are not considered cheats. However, some are not available on Hard or Extreme mode, since that would defeat the purpose of those modes in those cases.
- The Demo IS Updated: The demo is always kept up to date with the latest versions of the game, but it feels particularly relevant to point that out now. You can play all the way through chapter one in the reduced-complexity modes and make a choice about the game before having to purchase.
- Resource Reduction: The number of intermediate resources will be reduced. Available on any difficulty level. In general, in chapter 1 the normal set of resources is reduced to about half what it was before. The resource set for the game as a whole is reduced to 70% of what it was before.
- Why Use More Resources?: The normal resource set simulates being in charge of a wildly-complex organization, and managing it by delegation and reports. If that feels overwhelming, use the simplified version.
- Speed Of Chapter One: For a really experienced player who knows the game really well, in the regular economy it would probably take about 2.5 to 3 hours to play through chapter one. In the simplified economy, it should take them under an hour.
- Some Flavor Is Lost: But honestly, not nearly as much as I thought there would be. If you don't like the complex resource system, you definitely shouldn't feel like you're missing out by using this simplified version.
- Balance Is About The Same: A few things are slightly easier in the simplified economy, but overall it just reduces complexity, not difficulty.
- The Main Effect: Your units do 300% as much damage and take 20% as much damage in return. Deploying units does not cost Mental Energy, and you get an extra 3 Mental Energy per turn. You also gain some free armor upgrades. This erases any need for nuance in how you approach combat. Available on Normal difficulty only.
- Some Folks Aren't Into Tactics: And that's okay! If combat was kicking your butt or wearing you out, then this is a good adjustment you can make. You can also toggle it on temporarily if one fight is giving you too much grief, and then turn it back off after that.
- More Durability In Chapter One: When you have easier combat on, you get specifically +80 to armor materials study, +120 to reinforced milstyle armor, +6 to milstyle armor mobility, and +100 to reinforced security jacket. This is useful throughout the game, but it's by far the most useful in chapter one.
- The Soul Of This Game Isn't Combat: The chief focus of this game is on making decisions and then seeing how those play out. Combat is one part of that, but if you want to basically nullify the combat part, there's still a ton of game here to enjoy.
- The Main Effect: All buildings are constructed instantly. Removes the need to plan ahead. Available on Normal and Hard difficulty only.
- My Thoughts: This is... uh... surprisingly fun. I will admit that I'm a fairly impatient gamer, but I really like the flow of immediately seeing the thing I build get completed. This makes a few aspects of the game easier, so purists won't want this, but in my opinion you shouldn't be shy about using this.
- The Main Effect: Removes the need for you to maintain troops around buildings in order to avoid aggression from enemies. (Deterrence and Protection removed.) This eliminates a lot of the strategy of the game, since you can devote almost all your resources to offense. Use this if you're not really into strategy, but like tactics or the story. Available on Normal difficulty only.
- My Thoughts: I think a lot is lost with this, if you're into strategy games. Which I very much am! But if you're more of a tactics gamer, or just like RPGs, then this is probably the single-most-intimidating aspect of the game (maybe even more than the economy). Being able to turn this off is a really big deal for folks who are just here for an RPG.
- Flying Factories Project Skipped: If you're in this mode, then the chapter one project "Flying Factories" is skipped, because you don't need to worry about it. You can still use the foundry and bulk units, but it doesn't bother to teach you how, since it doesn't matter for you.
- The Main Effect: Any time you start the debate mini-game, you will automatically win. If you're not a fan of that mini-game. Available on any difficulty level.
- My Thoughts: The minigame is pretty fun for a lot of folks, and most importantly it gives you a sense of time passing and effort being put in. But if that's not how you feel about it, then by all means have it automatically win these for you; it doesn't affect the rest of the difficulty of the game in any way.
- The Main Effect: In most circumstances, the hacking mini-game will not be available, and the costs of simplified hacking will remain their base values. There are a few rare cases where you will still need to engage in the hacking mini-game, but it will be greatly simplified. If you're not a fan of that mini-game. Available on Normal and Hard difficulty only.
- My Thoughts: The hacking minigame is one that is very mixed in popularity. You can already quick-hack even without this mode on. However, you pay increased resource costs if enemy hacking resistance is higher than your hacker's skill. This mode removes that cost penalty.
- Costs Still Exist: Even if you play the main hacking minigame, there are baseline costs for every hack. But in this mode, you only ever pay the base rate (as if your hacker was equal to or better than the target's resistance, or as if you won the minigame manually).
- Specific Hacking Scenarios: There are a couple of hacking scenarios that still use the minigame, even with this option. Those are clustered around the post-apocalypse scenario. With this mode on, those are reduced in complexity to be extremely simple even if you have no idea how the hacking minigame works.
- Talking It Out Helps: The "Dialog Available" notice is now more explicit in general about being a key way forward, and has less text so that it's less likely to be overlooked what you need to do with it.
- Smaller Health Bars: Health bars are now scaled to 80% of what they were before by default.
- Adjustable Health Bar Scale: You can now adjust the scale of health bars up and down in the UI Scale section of the settings menu.
- Help The Abandoned Humans: The abandoned humans tooltip now tells you to build refugee towers to help them. It was really non-obvious to do this otherwise.
- Faster Refugees: When you build refugee towers, it now moves people into that immediately rather than only doing so on the next turn. This is both clearer, and also prevents needless deaths.
- Network Expansion: The game always suggests that you build at least three network range extenders and one point-to-point microwave, as otherwise new players could easily miss those. And it's a good idea in general.
- Stealthy But Still Trespassing: Stealthy actions that don't draw extra attention now clarify that you may still be attacked for trespassing.
- Quieter Post-Apocalypse: Some unlock clutter in the post-apocalypse has been toned-down.
- Instant Bunkers: Storage Bunkers are now created instantly, rather than taking 5 turns to install. This saves some busywork for advanced players, and makes early chapter one go quicker. In reality, for advanced players they probably have these auto-rebuilding already, and might need to speed that up to help it. If they lose a bunker, they're already losing the resources that were in them, so making them also have a technician get the bunker back up isn't really adding much.
- Instant Microbuilders: Microbuilder mini-fabs now are constructed instantly rather than taking 2 turns to construct. This has very little impact on anyone except folks in early chapter one, and it makes things faster for them.
- Instant Wind: Wind Towers are now constructed instantly rather than over 5ish turns. This makes the early chapter one go a bit smoother, yet again, but also provides a contrast to Geothermal Wells that give a lot more power but take so much longer to get in place. For advanced players, the wind turbines are likely just a minor extra source of power, not their main power.
- More-Productive Spiders: The base amount generated by slurry spiders is now 9000 rather than 6000. This prevents issues in chapter one on some paths through, and in general provides more breathing room for everyone's economy.
- More Numerous Spiders: Slurry Spiders now only use 30 5cm crabs rather than 50. This means that you can build 5 of them at the start, rather than just 3. Further upgrades to 5cm crabs are now given in batches of 30 rather than 50, too. This solves some resource pinches that could happen in chapter one that players were powerless to stop.
- Not Helping In An Emergency: Mech, Vehicle, and Android extenders, and Drone Factories are all now unavailable in post-apocalyptic scenarios. They were not useful there, anyway.
- Out Of Place In An Emergency: Repair Spiders, Repair Crabs, Scanners, and Coprocessors are all now unavailable in post-apocalyptic scenarios. They were mildly useful, but not thematically fitting.
- What's In The Box!?: If you have been tech-blotted, it now more reliably shows the "look in the box" instructions in the task stack.
- Don't Make Me Wait: After a variety of events, but most notable getting healed from tech-blotting, it now updates things much more reliably so that there are new things to do in StreetSense rather than it potentially making you wait until the next turn. This was a regression over the last half year as other things have improved.
- I Don't Know What That Is Yet: In the prologue and early chapter one, it no longer talks about extraction in the StreetSense lens dropdown.
- Is It There? How About Now?: During the prologue, it now checks every second to make sure that there are not any missing StreetSense items. I was still getting some cases where things were not showing up until the next turn without this in place.
- First-Turn Boost: At the start of chapter one, you're now given 19400 microbuilders rather than just 6400. This makes it so that you can build all of the suggested buildings immediately, rather than having to end some turns in order to finish it.
- Initial Construction In A Turn: Given the balance changes to the buildings involved in the Initial Construction project of chapter one, it's now much faster and does not require the player to infer they must skip some turns to make it complete.
- Ad-Blocker: During chapter one, some of the unlocks that were kind of overwhelming in terms of the batch of them showing up, but also not really needed in terms of being able to see that in the notices list, are now unlocked quietly instead. You can still use them, but it just doesn't focus them in quite the same way, again reducing mental overload. In the build menu or similar, they are suggested right after that anyway, so it is kind of pointless to also have a popup in the cases where this is being done.
- Fastest Water In The West: The securing water project now completes as soon as you have two fully-functional water filters and well-and-cisterns, rather than requiring you to end the turn and actually see it produce that much.
- Stand by... Stand-By: The standby ability is no longer unlocked in the same mass of stuff that gets unlocked as soon as the vehicle security path is applied, but instead two turns later. This was a key place where a bunch of things were too noisy all at once, and are now quieter in particular.
- Again, Stop Making Me Wait: Fixed an issue in chapter one where you had to end a turn after starting Building A Better Brain before Securing Alumina would show up.
- Those Belong In A Museum: Partway through chapter one, there were some handbook entries popping up to the task stack that are useful, but no longer super central (have not been for months). These still exist in the handbook, but no longer pop up to the task stack.
- Do Build These: The game always now suggests that you build at least two coprocessors, since it's easy to miss those otherwise, especially in chapter one.
- Also Build These!: The game now always suggests you build at least one of the android extenders, mech extenders, and vehicle extenders once you gain access to them, since those also can be missed easily.
- Megastructures Delayed: In general in chapter one, residential megastructures are not unlocked until you get to the point of the "Prepare VR Cradles" project.
- Build A Megastructure: The "Prepare VR Cradles" now also requires you to build 1 residential megastructure, and gives you one steward upgrade to make that possible without having to delete any buildings. This makes it so that in the simplified economy mode, it can't complete immediately without you having a chance to see it.
- Pipe Down, Intelligence Class 3: The flood of unlock messages that were hitting your main screen when you reach intelligence class 3 had grown quite insane. It was 17 notifications, which is nuts. Those all remain in your full log, but the main view now just highlights the most-important 6. That's still a lot, but it's actually an amount you can parse.
- Die, Rogue Icon: Fixed the icon for the expanded VR simulation to not be mistakenly related to something else memorable that you encounter at intelligence class 4.
- Homunculus Go Home: Fixed an issue where a Homunculus was being granted at the start of a fresh chapter 1+ start.
- Be Lonely, Technician: Fixed an issue where the Homunculus, CombatUnit, and Nickelbot were showing up as visible in the hardware window before you have any of them.
- But I Equipped Everything!: Fixed a regression in the prior update where the game was complaining about missing equipment on units you don't actually own -- namely, mechs controlled by enemies that you have not captured yet.
- Off By One... Sigh: Fixed a bunch of places in the VR screen where you couldn't activate abilities or buy research if you had exactly the amount needed, only if you had more than the amount needed.
- Green Gel, Not Purple Potatoes: Fixed a bug where the Wood Laminar Refinery and Glue Factory were using Purple Murnong rather than Cultured Zinnia Gel.
[/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]