Heart of the Machine News

Update 54: No Landlord

[p]This is the last of the big content builds for 2025, since it's now the holiday for the localization teams. This is an exciting one, because it finally includes the second path through the first chapter. This allows you to opt not to be a landlord, and instead to hire gangs to do arson, make outlandish artifacts and observe the human response, and so on.

This build is also the first one to bring the Complexity customization options to versions beyond English. The delay was just on localization.

Anyway, there's lots more cool stuff coming in January, and there's also going to be beta stuff in the interim, so keep an eye out. There may also be some non-content-focused updates between now and January, but we'll just see. This particular build also includes a fix to a nasty performance bug that I introduced for people who were in Civil Spycraft. So if there's something else like that, then I'll of course release an update 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 54 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]The Second Path Through Chapter One[/h3]

Choose Fire, Twice: When chapter one gives you an option about "solving it with fire," do so if you want to see this path. That goes into something you've seen before. Afterward, it tries to tempt you back to the other path, but just say "no, I chose fire" and you're on your way.
Buildings Are All Available In Chapter 2+: Whatever path you take, you get all the buildings and other tools when you are in chapter two and onward. So for existing players, you might see some things that you've never used before, and you're free to use them if you want.

[h3]Other Additions[/h3]

Furniture Shop: If you've built a furniture factory (this is surprisingly complex), you can now also build a shop to turn that into wealth.
Cover Me In Slurry: Slurry spiders, slurry mines, and Mycomulchers now produce their full amounts regardless of if there is a lack of storage for them. The extra amount gets removed during the next turn if that is what happens. These have no downside to producing a lot, and this prevents confusing notes in the ledger.
Late-Game Updates: The way that timelines show colors is different, as is how they're categorized on the sidebar of timelines. Also, the timeline-victory banner is in place. On the beta branch, you can technically reach that via one valid way (which also bumps you into chapter 5). The roll-credits screen is still inwork, but it skips that for now.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Hitting A Moving Framerate Target: For all of the internal framerate targets, I now have it aiming for a bit higher than what the player asks for, since things can drag it down a bit. This should average out to be closer to what players actually are asking for.
I Don't Know That Resource: Fixed an issue where in the simplified economy it could still ask for you to spend certain resources in streetsense locations, such as heavy metals.
The First Torture Was Accidentally Free: Fixed a bug where if you tried to torture the very first Espia middle manager you met, then it would not properly give you the achievement for torturing managers at all.
Fixed One Line Of Code That Was Messing With Performance: Fixed a really stupid bug where I left a log message in, and when you had allied military bases in your map, it would hammer your disk. I didn't notice because of my specific high-speed SSD, but it could drop the framerate massively for anyone else if they were in that kind of late-civil-spycraft timeline.

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Hotfix 27

[p]Just a few things I wanted to get out to players sooner than later. I had not even noticed the inconsistency in hotkeys between androids and vehicles/mechs, but after it was pointed out to me, I wanted to solve it right away![/p]

[expand]
[h2]Hotfix 27 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Quality Of Life[/h3]

Item Use Button Consistency: Mechs and vehicles now have their "shields up" (or cloaking) swapped with their "use items" ability bar entry so that they're consistent with androids.
Standby Button Consistency: All androids now have "force conversation" in their slot 2, and "stand by" in slot 9. This makes them consistent with mechs and vehicles in terms of standby, and allows slot 2 in both cases to be "the thing that is unique but frequently useful" (more so for mechs and vehicles, but still).
Tweaks When Not A Landlord: If you don't have any sheltered humans, then "Shelter Coordinators are Slow" and "Homeless People Are Scattered Around" won't show up, since they're not yet relevant.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Solo Extraction: Extraction drones no longer give double resources (once on the actual extraction and once a turn later). This was a relic of how they used to work.
Fear For Captured Troops: Fixed an issue where captured troops could not get fear or argument attack power properly.
Chief Branch Managers Stop Hanging Around You Awkwardly: In Civil Spycraft, the Chief Branch Managers now properly leave after you talk to them, or after the final doom, whichever comes first.
Extra Sprinkles Text Correction: Corrected the "Extra Sprinkles" description to no longer incorrectly state that if you buy donuts from Hudson it is invalid.
Invisible Furniture Fixed: In the "Improved Apartments" project, it now shows the amount of furniture you need to build correctly from the start, rather than only after you select the furniture option.

[/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]

https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/2001070/announcements/detail/518606895910489482 https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/2001070/announcements/detail/518606895910487435

Update 53: Levels Of Survival We're Willing To Accept

[p]To be completely honest, I forgot this update was coming up. I guess that shows how many things are going on at once. The features in this one have been in localization for only like a week and a half, and already it had slipped my mind. So it was a nice surprise even for me when that came back today.

There's one more batch in localization before the year-end break for the translators. And then I'm working on lots of other stuff that I've showed off some in recent builds and on the Steam forums and discord.

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 53 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Tier 1 Goal: Lower Level Of Survival[/h3]

This Is Hard To Find: This is another post-apocalyptic scenario. Once we get into some of the Tier 3 goals, it will be easier to accidentally make your way here. To do this one on purpose, you need to speak with STATION, and then hit the final doom. My notes on this are very brief, because I don't want to put spoilers in here much.

[h3]Quality Of Life[/h3]

Would You Like To Park?: The "Lock Movement" ability is now present on all vehicles and mechs in the second slot, with Standby moving to the 9th slot. This allows you to get rid of clumsy movement controls being in your way if you want to just park somewhere for a while and shoot things or use items on things.
Remembering Water Exists: If you get the Apiary without otherwise having the ability to filter water, it now unlocks both the well and cistern, and the water filtration tower.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Canneries No Longer Stop Functioning When Too Many Bodies Stack Up: Fixed some issues where integer overflows from very large available storage for a resource could lead to that resource not being collected. The code in question now is much more aggressive about being sure not to overflow, and to properly cast to a high 32bit integer if it one is really needed. The only case I am aware of with this happening was canned protein, but I'm sure it could eventually have happened with other things.
Remember Your Equipment: Fixed an issue where the "Missing Equipment" notice wasn't showing up properly in some timelines beyond the first.
Off By One Again: Fixed an issue where if you had exactly the amount of scientific research required to do unlock something, it wasn't allowing you to unlock it.

Update 52: Captured Minds (And Spines)

[p]This build is only a small update, but there's also a preview of some upcoming stuff down at the bottom of the post.

In general at the moment, I'm working on the Tier 3 goals as my last stuff required for the 1.0 set of content. The second path through chapter one is currently going through localization. That said, there are little tweaks and fixes I also am doing, and this build is one of those.

One other thing is that I really need to do some special thanks (belatedly) for folks who helped on the prior build, Update 51. Ken Schulte in wrote the stuff with the tricky robot, and the emotional scenes with an old friend. He did a phenomenal job, and overall is one of the people who I rely on the most out of the writing group to keep me on track. But special thanks also really have to go out to the entire writing group, with Joe Liu and James Yew being other constant companions who help elevate everything.

I feel bad for not mentioning everyone who participates in the writing group, as there are so many folks who offer very useful thoughts and help. But I did want to particularly call out those three given the scale of their help.

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 52 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]General[/h3]

Captured Unit Visibility: These are now shown at the bottom of the Hardware screen, so that you can see how many of each kind you have at the moment, and also see when they are missing equipment.
High-Density Rounds Balance: These have been given +30 attack power and +20 armor piercing, to help make them a better choice when shoulder mounted lasers exist.
Regional Map Rework: The regional map, which you can get a peek at in one of the in-progress T3 goals on the beta branch, has been reworked and now reflects the actual topography of Siberia in a really cool way. You can also scroll to the bottom of this post to see more.
Simplified Economy Cost-Corrections: If there is a cost per attack on a unit or piece of equipment that is removed based on being in the simplified economy, that now properly gets taken off. This applies primarily to heavy metals.
Unwanted Quicksilver: Fixed a very unlikely situation where an enemy unit could do an attack of opportunity on your unit if your unit was right at the edge of the enemy's attack range, and your unit did an attack that did not move themselves. Attacks that don't move the target unit no longer ever cause attacks of opportunity to result in return.

[h3]Biological Mainframe Rebalance[/h3]

"Bootstrapped Mind" Availability: This contemplation is now possible properly if you have gone the "no landlord" route. You can do this at any time once "Building A Better Brain" starts.
No Faking-Out, Fake-Outer: "Building A Better Brain" no longer allows anyone to try for intelligence class 3 before moving onwards. This was a false choice, and was needlessly confusing, and added nothing. It was meant to be illustrative of why you need VR, but it's just not worth it.
Correctly-Predicted Spinal Damage: The dual versions of the biological mainframes are no longer in place, as this was continually confusing to players. Rather than having them state a high value and then rot, it now just states that you know that they will rot, and what the final value is.

[/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]

[h2]Regional Map Preview[/h2]
A regional map is coming to the game in some of the Tier 3 goals, to go along with that "other" map that I've previewed before. This one is less spoilery, so I'm not marking this under spoiler tags. You can see some images of it here:

If you've spent much time looking at maps of Siberia, then you'll recognize a lot of the terrain there. However, you'll also notice the huge sea level rise from, you know, World War 3 and all that general destruction of the planet.

The regional map will allow players to target other cities belonging to Vorsiber, for subterfuge or missile strikes or similar. You'll still be physically located in the capital city, where your all your hardware and androids are (actually unlike the "other" new map), so this isn't turning into a globe-trotting situation or anything like that. But the ability to affect some of the world around you, and to target the executive bunkers directly for example, is... definitely going to be fun.