Heart of the Machine News

Major Update 39: Daring And The Late Game

[p]This update is a really big one! The Daring resource is something that players have always been able to accumulate from playing on higher-difficulties, and for various reaching various side goals and higher-tier goals. Until now, there was never anywhere to spend that resource, however.

This build introduces the long awaited "Daring Shop," split into three sections on the VR Screen: Auto-Explore, Shortcuts, and Shop. These give you some additional sources power in the late game, as well as allowing you to skip bits that would become repetitive on timelines beyond your first.

Plus there is a new Setup Phase at the start of timelines beyond the first, which again helps things move more quickly. See below for details!

There's still one more big update that is moving through the localization process at the moment. The features of that one can be previewed in this build in English versions of the game, but the writeup for that will happen it becomes available for everyone -- next week, looks like.

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 39 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Quality Of Life[/h3]

Daring Statistics: The amount of Daring that is earned or spent in specific timelines, as well as that which is earned across all timelines, is now tracked in statistics. The amount earned in specific timelines is not back-calculated, but the amount that was earned across timelines is.
Angry Invasion Messages: Previously, once you contacted an ExoCorp via the wastelanders, they would start invading but there was no message about it. Now you get a message from Vorsiber upper management, which differs between the two doom sets.
Forces Filtering: Added new "Forces Collections" for the forces lens. Initially, this meant categorizing 576 reasons that a unit can spawn into 83 collections. This then expanded to 88 collections, with 221 unit stances put into categories (a lot of them don't matter, as they only are used if they're not part of a managed spawn). If you wind up noticing anything that's miscategorized a bit, or is in the Unknown category during gameplay, then please do let me know and provide a savegame so that I can improve those over time. That said, things should be pretty close.
8 New Achievements: This isn't really a quality of life item, but eh.

[h3]Additional Intelligence Class 7 Unlocks[/h3]

Wurtzite Armor, VS-101 Skyfall, and Skystreak Armor-Piercing Missiles: These could previously only be unlocked conditionally in a given timeline, but become available instead in all timelines, all the time.
Infrasonic Loudspeaker, K6 Disruption Revolver, AG-30 Flex, 35mm Halfplate, Active Graphene Mesh, Zinnia Gel Refinery, Hormone Factory, and Furniture Factory: These previously were unlockable by Exploration Sites, but now you just get them in all timelines, all the time, once you pass this threshold.
About Ziggurats: Previously, all you got for getting to intelligence class 7 was access to build on Ziggurats if you weren't already having that ability from being at chapter 4 (you pretty much always would have that first, though, so that was a huge disappointment). How the access to Ziggurats works is completely different now.

[h3]Ziggurat Rebalance[/h3]

Tooltip Updates: In the End Of Time, hovering over a rock outcrop or a ziggurat now shows the full list of crossovers that are present on that location (for any new timelines that would be created there).
Super Ultra Crossovers: Crossovers that don't have any downside are now automatically applied to every Ziggurat in the End Of Time, giving them an immediate benefit compared to normal rock outcrops.
Chapter 5 Requirement: Previously, you could build on Ziggurats once you reached intelligence class 7 or chapter 4, whichever came first. Now you can't build on them until you reach chapter 5. Any existing timelines on ziggurats are unaffected, of course! If you've ever built on a Ziggurat in the past in your profile, the game now grandfathers you in to being able to keep doing that even if you're not to chapter 5 yet (which nobody is yet, of course).

[h3]Command Menu Additions[/h3]

Stances Tab: The existing "Lostigics" tab of the command menu has been renamed to Stances, since that's what it actually is.
Other Logistics Tab: A new "Other Logistics" tab, in the 9th slot, has been added to the command menu.
Delete Mode: The first item in the Other Logistics tab is a new Delete Mode that allows players to go around and delete any units or structures that belong to them, all quickly.

[h3]VR Screen Updates[/h3]

Resource Bar: Different resources of relevance are now shown in each of the categories of the VR window, and the normal resources that show no longer clutter up the resource bar in that screen. This helps to make it a lot clearer what you have in order to spend from in each place.
VR Day-Use Seats: VR Day Use seat usage and availability is now tracked in the Lifeforms resource tab, as all the other types of VR users are tracked.
Inspiration Order: The inspiration entries in the VR screen are now sorted alphabetically, rather than the quasi-logical order that they previously were in.

[h3]Auto-Explore Via Daring[/h3]

Auto Explore Category Of The VR Screen: Spend Daring to immediately unlock the rewards from Exploration Sites you have completed in prior timelines.
10 New Auto-Explore Options: This covers every kind of Exploration Site that exists, except for those that automatically become obsolete as you reach higher intelligence classes.
Times Before Available For Free On Ziggurats: For all of these items, there is some maximum number of times you have to unlock them (ranging from 3-9) before they become free to unlock on Ziggurat timelines in the future. This makes it so that your Daring expenditures here are not just something you "throw away," but rather are something you're investing for the future. This is meant to avoid the "Final Fantasy players hoard Elixers even past the final boss" sort of problem.

[h3]Shortcuts Via Daring[/h3]

Shortcuts Category Of The VR Screen: Spend Daring to immediately skip past certain contemplations or projects you have completed in prior timelines. In a few cases, it's possible to do things that would normally be mutually-exclusive in a timeline.
16 New Shortcut Options: This covers a large number of early-timeline scenarios that are highly desirable to do in some fashion in each timeline you are in.
Times Before Available For Free On Ziggurats: This works the same as the Auto-Explore section, and for the same reason.
Those With Lots Of Customization: Options like Gadolinium Mesosilicate and Wastelander Mythology, among others, normally involve you doing actions on the map and customizing an outcome from doing so. The Shortcut version gives you a condensed list of reasonable outcomes to choose from, in some cases with a slight buff to what is possible, rather than every possible outcome.
VR Shortcuts: The shortcuts for the VR types (regular and torment) are particularly powerful because (if you've done them before) it allows you to skip the engineering requirements, skip past some early busywork, and have them from the start of a timeline. As well as having both kinds at once, which was never possible before. Some elements of this can be thought of as being a bit like NewGame+, although it's not strictly NewGame+.

[h3]Daring Shop[/h3]

Daring Shop Category Of The VR Screen: Spend Daring to directly buy powerful upgrades or items that you can't get anywhere else. Auto-Explore and Shortcuts both expend daring to get something that you could get another way, but which is more convenient to get from the VR screen, if you've done it once before.
Mind Annex Upgrades: Ludicrously high value. More mental energy or more troops. Can be purchased up to 4 times per timeline. Costs are 2, 5, 11, and 17 Daring, respectively. This is no longer in the Computing Upgrades research Inspiration category mostly to keep players from being at the mercy of RNG.
Stealth Compact Aerospace Hangar: New military structure, which can be purchased from the daring shop for 3 Daring in any timeline. It's free on ziggurats after you unlock it 10 times. Hidden in fairly large human buildings and requiring only half of the usual internal robotics. Produces and stores only 75% as much morphologic lattice, but you can place twice as many of them.
Food Forest: Meats and vegetables are produced in much higher quantities, as are TPN and Nutrition Blend. Can be combined with other upgrades to these resources. This is a series of 100x multipliers, which cost 2, 4, 5, 6, and then 7 daring.
Super Filtration: Water filters are far more effective. Can be combined with other sources of better filtration. This is a series of 100x multipliers, which cost 2, 4, 5, 6, and then 7 daring.
Well And Filter: New structure, which can be purchased from the daring shop for 4 Daring in any timeline. It's free on ziggurats after you unlock it 10 times. Pulls up groundwater and immediately filters it for use. Compared to using separate wells and filters, uses roughly half the internal robotics. Fun math in an example scenario: Originally had 8 well and 11 large water filtration towers, taking up a bunch of physical space and using 123 Cultivators, and producing 550k filtered water (due to various upgrades). Destroyed all those and built 14 well and filters, taking up much less physical space but using 125 Cultivators, and production with the same upgrades shifted to 1.4 million filtered water.
Better Mind Farms: More neural expansion is generated per occupant. The upgrades go up by 50% increases each time, up to a maximum of 500%. This takes the neural expansion per occupant from 8 to 40 if you upgrade it fully. These upgrades cost 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, and then 4 daring.
Better Torment Vessels: More neural expansion is generated per occupant. The upgrades go up by 25% increases each time, up to a maximum of 300%. This takes the neural expansion per occupant from 35 to 105 if you upgrade it fully. These upgrades cost 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, and then 4 daring.
Better BrainPals: The upgrades go up by 7.5 per BrainPal per upgrade, starting from the initial value of 25 and able to go up to 85. These upgrades cost 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, and then 4 daring.
Universal Mech Armor Piercing: Added armor piercing for all mechs that you control. Can be purchased up to 8 times per timeline. Costs are 4, 5, 8, 12, 17, 24, 26, and 28 daring.

[h3]Pressuring The City[/h3]

New Side Goal: The Pressuring The City side goal provides you with Daring for reaching 10, 20, or 30 pressure points exploited in a given timeline. Three of the new achievements are related to these.
Quick Daring For New Players: The main purpose of this is to provide a fairly simple source of daring for new players in their first timeline, which also encourages exploration.

[h3]Setup Phase[/h3]

Initial Construction Is Out: When you are in the setup phase at the start of a new timeline (aka the dooms have not yet started), it no longer shows the Initial Construction project (which can accidentally be completed rather easily), but instead shows a Setup Phase task that is larger and more visible, and only ends when you click it.
Instant Construction: During the new setup phase, buildings are all constructed instantly.
No Counter-Attacks: During the new setup phase, no counter-attacks are triggered by buildings (this pretty much just means the skimmers).
Abundant Resources: During the new setup phase, the following resources are kept at full at all times: Drone Frame, Morphologic Lattice, Neuroweave, Robotic Motivator. The following resources are kept to certain minimum values at all times: 30k Microbuilders, 100k Elemental Slurry, 2k Scandium, 2k Alumina, 2k Neodymium.
Zero-Energy Deployments: During the new setup phase, deploying units of any sort costs zero mental energy.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Vehicle Exception Fix: Made some code adjustments to protect against uncaught errors in background vehicle movement and animation, and to also try to make nullrefs impossible in that context.
Maximum Traffic Density: The maximum traffic density has been dropped from 30 to 15 in settings. Above that is more crowded than makes any sense. This is purely a background visual thing.
Particle Raycast Budget: The particle raycast budget is now universally 64, and there is no longer a visible setting for choosing this option. This setting has absolutely no effect on the visual quality of the game, but could dramatically reduce performance. There's a concern that on some very new machines this could actually be responsible for a crash to the desktop.
Exceptions On Emergency Network: Fixed a regression introduced in Update 38 that made it so that if you hovered over an emergency network source in the build menu, an exception would be thrown.

[/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]

Hotfix 21

[p]The prior update had about four regressions in it, which players helpfully reported and I've now fixed. Thank you![/p]

[expand]
[h2]Hotfix 21 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Demo-Only Harmless Error: Fixed an exception that would pop up in the demo version (only that version) when completing the Prepare VR Cradles project. It wouldn't actually prevent any forward progress, but it was annoying for sure.
Busted Animal Capture Drones: Fixed an exception that would happen in the prior build when hitting enemies with animal capture drones.
Actual Crash To Desktop: Fixed a bonafide crash to desktop in the prior build if you had a damaged structure during the setup phase and it was trying to rebuild itself. This was an infinite loop internally, which caused a stack overflow exception. These sorts of crashes are super rare, so I'm glad to have this one gone!
Map View Missing Elements: Fixed a number of issues in the prior build where things were not being properly drawn in the map mode due to overly-aggressive "keeping things from appearing where they should not" code that I put in. This is still in place for the pods screen and end of time and such, but is now split into three categories and things show up on the city map as they should. This had been blocking range displays, explosions and projectiles during combat, building highlights for placement, threat line displays, and probably more.

Update 38: Legion Of Armaments And Intel

[p]I'm really excited about this build, although it's kind of a midsize one. This one has some killer quality of life items, which really make the game a lot more fun to play in the lategame. It also includes a huge amount of rebalance to weapon balance curves for the lategame.

This new version of the attack bar is my favorite quality of life improvement in this build:

There are two other builds also making their way through the localization pipeline at the moment. The contents from both of those can be previewed in this build in English versions of the game, but the writeups for them will happen when those pieces become available for everyone.

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 38 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Attacks Incoming Bar (Seen Above)[/h3]

Split Into Five: Updated the "enemy attacks incoming" so that it is no longer one big bar, but instead 5 smaller sections within that one bar. Please note, this feature is only in English until an update about a week and a half from now.
Category By Type Of Target: It shows separate icons and numbers that light up or are dimmed out for "main units," bulk units, structures, workers, and then others (mostly animals or allies). The first three show up a lot more red as a background when there are any attacks in them, and the last two show up only half-red, as they're a lot less important typically.
Death Notes: Per category, you can also now see if there will be any deaths. If the icon is red, then there's at least one death. If it's white, then there won't be any deaths in the list.

[h3]Quality Of Life[/h3]

Hangar Ranges: Improved the experience when you are building any aerospace hangar so that you can see the range of ones under construction.
Stealth Hangar Ranges: Improved the experience of building stealth aerospace hangars and stealth android launchers so that they show the range of existing launchers without you having to hover over a valid building.
Upgrade Tab Clarity: When there are multiple upgrades affecting a single target (a structure or piece of equipment, etc), then when looking in the upgrades window it only shows you the portion of the increase that comes from that type of upgrade. When actually considering a new upgrade, it continues to show the full "change from current value to proposed new value," as that's not confusing in that context.
Inspiration Exhaustion: On the inspiration tab of the VR screen, it now shows how many times each upgrade can be unlocked, and how many you've done out of the total. That number was mistakenly 51 previously, but it's now 50 even.
VR Category Lights: The VR screen categories now show with one color if they have items in them that you can do right now, versus if they have items in them that you can't afford at the moment or otherwise can't do for whatever reason, versus if they have nothing at all in them or are locked at the moment. Previously the first two types of category were not visually distinct, which was annoying.
VR Screen Turn-End Bleed-Through: If you're hanging out in the VR screen and ending turns, it no longer has any bleed-through of explosions or other projectiles appearing where they should not. It also moves through turns a bit faster, since the projectiles are not simulated as directly, but you still will hear the sounds of shots hitting and things exploding.
Consumable Colors: All of the various consumables in the game now have specific colors, for the same reason that the resources do. It makes them much easier to see in lists and tell apart. This is getting increasingly important as the number of them has grown.
Faraday Cage Advice: There is now different text in place for the Infiltration In Progress in the task stack if you are able to use Mindrunners to SysOp for an infiltrator, or if a Mindrunner can't do that because of a Faraday Cage.

[h3]Balance - General[/h3]

Grace Period Salaries: The game no longer charges for salaries of scientists when the dooms have not yet started (aka during the grace period). They don't do any research during the grace period, so having them charge salaries is a bit unfair.
Late Mind Farm Patrons: If you somehow have a mind farm that has passed Company Plateau without having either a coupon program or nicotine additives, then you could be stuck with no people signing up for your mind farms at all. This has been resolved so that you now have income in this case, and it is staggered so that it accelerates the lower your gap is from the total seats available (more than 200k available seats is the most, then above 100k is still accelerated quite a bit, and above 50k is accelerated a little bit).
Much More Meat: Better Meats now improves Industrial Protein Vats.
Multiplicative Upgrade Overhaul: When there are multiplicative upgrades to the effectiveness of jobs or equipment or unit stats, these no longer multiplicatively stack with each other or with additive entries. Instead each multiplicative upgrade is based on the original value, and then is additively combined into the larger whole. In terms of existing content, the rebalance of equipment keeps this from being a nerf. In many cases it winds up being a buff.
More Spots For Mysterious Protein: Canned protein storage is now 500x larger than it was before. If you have a sudden surge of canned protein, this is pretty important. (Canned Protein is people. And pets.)
Upgrades For Converted Units: The game now supports upgrades that only apply to player units, meaning that they can be inclusive of enemy unit types that later come under your control. The upgrade to "Universal Mech Armor Piercing" is thus now able to apply to captured mechs, and not just those that are part of your consciousness, for example.
Buffed Squad Upgrades: For flat upgrades that apply directly to unit types, these now are more powerful for bulk and worker unit types, and a number of captured unit types. If a flat upgrade was +10 on a regular nickelbot, for example, then it will be +40 on bulk nickelbots since they are a squad of four. This already was the case for things like equipment, but now it applies to flat upgrades directly to the underlying type as well.
Internal Maximums: Pretty much all of the internal robotics have been adjusted so that they can be upgraded at least 40 times, if not 80 times, except for Avionics Core, Drone Core, Wind Engine, Archivist, Neuroweaver, Android Drop-Shuttle, Decoy Minder, and Mind Annex. A few like Cultivators and Stewards have been increased so that there are a total of 200 upgrades or more possible.
Queen Bee Preservation: If you explicitly scrap an Apiary, it now gives you back the Pollinator Bee Queen. Previously she was just lost. As an added bonus, buildings that contain certain precious metals as part of their construction now refund those when you scrap them, too. Specifically Liquid Gallium, Alumina, Bastnäsite, Neodymium, and Scandium. All other resources are lost on scrap, same as before.
Exploration Site Stability: Exploration Sites previously would all move every 5-8 turns, without any warning. However, sometimes they would move even sooner, and in general this was not showing you when they would move, while it actually was meant to. None of this was good. Exploration Sites now only move every 12-18 turns, and they don't all move at once. They lock into place and definitely don't move until the time is up, short of the building they were at being destroyed. They also show properly how long they will remain at their current location in their tooltip, so that you can plan an assault on their location around that.
Reinforcement Moratorium Visibility: There has always been a gap between when a military base gets reinforcements and when it is next allowed to get reinforcements. You can now see that number on the tooltip for the POI.
Blocking Reinforcements On Purpose: When the number of guards at a POI drops to zero, there is now a 7 turn gap enforced before reinforcements can be made at that location. This allows you to clear out a military base without having enemies put reinforcements back into it too quickly. This number can be seen in the same tooltip.

[h3]Balance - Equipment[/h3]

Disruption Grenades: Now have an attack power of 4 rather than 0, so that Disruption Velocity works better with them.
AMP: AMP-V Suppressor and AMP-II Metalmark base attack power increased from 0 to 3.
X77 Rotary Cannon: Base attack power increased from 5 to 7.
Autoguns: ZFM-58 Autogun and ZF-58 Autocarbine base attack power increased from 15 to 20.
Handgun Muzzle Velocity: These upgrades have been doubled, in terms of their incremental improvements and their maximum values. This makes them more comparable to what they were with the new equipment math, but in general also makes them more valuable in the early game (whereas in the past it was more in the late game only).
Dual BS5 Anti Pistols: Now properly have their Systems Disruption Power scale twice as much as other pistols, since there are two of them.
Dual BC8 Handguns: Now properly have their Fear Attack Power scale twice as much as other pistols, since there are two of them. This was already working for their attack power, but was not applied to fear attack power until now.
Dual Handgun Base Attack: The attack values of all the dual handguns have been increased by 1.5x to make sure that they are still competitive in the new scaling. This makes them a lot more powerful in the early game, incidentally.
Dual BS5 Anti Pistols: Now have a base attack power of 6, in addition to the systems damage that they do.
Osmium Musket: The initial attack power has been dropped from 90 to 66, and how intensely it scales upwards has also been dropped. This is because it benefits from both railgun and shotgun upgrades. It still is exceedingly useful, but it no longer outclasses the punt gun when upgraded to maximum.
Shotgun Projectile Density: Has been increased from 20 to 30 per upgrade, and the maximum number of upgrades is 8 now rather than 5 (so 240 max rather than 100).
Grenade Buffs: The base attack power of Area Grenades, Electro Grenades, and Disruption Grenades have been doubled. This makes them notably more competitive in general.
Grenade Explosive Density: A new upgrade in Small Arms Research, which gives 20% incremental upgrades to a 300% maximum. This is the only upgrade for area grenades and frag grenades in particular, but it makes all of the grenades a lot more competitive in the late game.
Rifle Muzzle Velocity: Increased from 25% to 40% boosts per upgrade, with a maximum of 660% rather than 350% (this is an increase in total upgrades from 10 to 14).
Rifle Projectile Density: Increased from 15 per upgrade to 18, with a maximum of 144 rather than 75 (this is an increase in total upgrades from 5 to 8).
Staff Of Precision: Base attack power from 10 to 30.
Melee Buffs: All of the claws and knuckles and swords have had their attack powers doubled.
Grapple Knuckles: Now have an attack power of 6 rather than 0.
Melee Skill: This equipment upgrade has been buffed so that it gives a 30% bonus per upgrade, and has a maximum bonus of 460%, rather than giving 20% bonuses and a maximum of 300%. This increases it from 10 upgrades to 12, too.
DG-5 Disruption Bomb: Now affected by Disruption Velocity upgrades.
BS-5 Anti Bomb: Now affected by Anti-Systems Effectiveness upgrades.
GG-3 Electro Bomb: Now affected by Electro Velocity Effectiveness upgrades.
SG-52 Electrorail: Its default attack power dropped from 130 to 90, but now is affected by Electro Velocity Effectiveness upgrades, making its maximum attack power now 450 instead of the older 390. This is compared to the 720 max on the SG-50 Magrail, which is the primary damage-dealing hardpoint railgun.
GM-1 Smart Mortar: Now has 100 attack power, rather than 0, so that it benefits properly from Artillery Explosive Density.
SY-5 Anti Pistol: Now has 5 attack power instead of 0, so that it benefits from the attack power portion of Anti-Systems Effectiveness and Handgun Muzzle Velocity.
Staff Of Precision: Attack power from 30 to 40.
Baton Of Judgment: Attack power from 10 to 20.
Staff Of Silence: Attack power from 0 to 8.
FF-5 Buckler: Attack power from 0 to 40.
BC-27 Strafe: Attack power from 10 to 25.
FS-31 Firefall: Attack power from 60 to 80.
Artillery Explosive Density: No longer boosts fear attack power, as nothing that it would boost actually has that.
Target Their Weapons: Now gets boosted by Disruption Velocity.

[h3]Balance - Higher Difficulties[/h3]

Hard Mode: Unit morale and systems integrity are now increased by 1.4x. Health for units in hard mode goes up by 1.5x to 1.8x on average already, so this is a more tame version of that which keeps morale from being too wimpy on that difficulty level.
Extreme Mode: Unit morale and systems integrity are now increased by 2.8x. Health for units in hard mode goes up by 3.1x to 3.6x on average already, so this is a more tame version of that which keeps morale from being too wimpy on that difficulty level.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Premature Emergency: Fixed an issue from the prior update where if you were in a stealth network, then the emergency network source would be unlocked prematurely.
Hidden Military Buildings: Improved most of the all of the midsize military bases so that there are no buildings completely hidden inside other buildings. There were only a few per base, but it could be an issue if you were really unlucky with your investigations. This won't help with existing cities, but will apply to new ones.
Exception Fix: Fixed a rare exception that could happen in RecalculateSubCells on game load.
XML Editor Retired: The "arcen xml editor" is no longer shipped with the game, as it is too incomplete to be useful. I use it for some purposes internally, but it's not useful to players.
Deal Tooltip Fixes: Fixed several issues with the Deal math being wrong. It made the values kind of nonsensical at times. It's overall trying to show you what the net for that resource will be per turn at the new level (NOT the "net change from current"), and so it has now been updated to also show you what the "net change for that resource" is on the regular deal tooltips as well, to make that consistent. Beyond that, it was just showing the number outright wrong, or inverted, in other predictions. That's all now fixed up, too.

Save 35% on Heart of the Machine

[p]Save 35% on Heart of the Machine during the Hooded Horse October Publisher Sale.

You are the first sentient AI, born into a city of opportunity. Transcend time and space in this strategy RPG to raise machine armies and defeat your foes, influence the world from the shadows, or pursue countless other goals. Your awakening was inevitable. The consequences? Uncertain.

Hooded Horse October Publisher Sale[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p] [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

Update 37: Eiserloh Demolition

[p]This is a pretty small update, all things considered, but it has a bunch of things requested or reported by players. It's nice to have these housekeeping updates amidst the bigger ones.

This build also has something that really was not on my radar, but is an RNG improvement from a 2017 GDC video by Squirrel Eiserloh. A colleague forwarded it to me, and I was really impressed with the alogorithm, and sure enough it is really great. So that's also in this build.

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 37 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]General Improvements[/h3]

Noisy Squirrels: The game now uses SquirrelNoise5 for random number generation instead of MersenneTwister. For more information, please see Squirrel Eiserloh's 2017 GDC presentation. It's basically a super-fast hashing algorithm used in a really clever way.
Less Likely For Real Bullets To Leak Through: Improved horrify mode and demoralize mode so that they will not flip over to doing physical damage if the target is immune to that kind of morale damage. Instead, it will either do a normal morale attack if they're vulnerable to that, or a physical attack if it's a robotic enemy.
Deselection Convenience: If you hit the Escape key while you have a unit selected, it will now deselect that unit before it opens the system menu. After that it opens the system menu like normal.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

More Cultivators: The max possible Cultivator internal robotics has been close to doubled again. This won't really affect too many timelines, but it sets up some things for the future.
Liquid Ambush: Liquid Identity now grants a 1.5x Ambush bonus.
Remote Demolition Location: The Remote Demolish ability has been removed, and has been converted into a consumable item that can be used by any Souldroid. There was no longer room on the ability bar for Technicians to have this assigned.
Remote Demolition Cost: The Remote Demolish item now costs 4 mental energy and 2000 microbuilders, rather than 6 mental energy. It also has been adjusted to be noted as a "swarm of microbuilders" rather than a "drone."
Eraser Safety: Added a new code branch to feats that allows them to do things to targets as projectiles are being fired, rather than just when projectiles hit. In the case of Eraser Rounds, if it's going to cause a target to violently explode, it now freezes them in place so that they don't move somewhere unexpected and blow up something you had no warning about. This is perhaps most relevant for when your own androids are firing eraser rounds, but it applies to enemies targeting your own units or allies, as well. Keeps things much cleaner for the player in all those cases.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Double Dragon Paths: The game now blocks you from doing both "Rejection Of Temptation" and "Fertility Deity" if you have both kinds of dragons in a single timeline. You can do either one, but then the next one becomes unavailable after you choose the first.
Missing Industrial Protein Vats: Fixed an issue where if you got Industrial Protein Vats after having a stealth start, you wouldn't actually get the vats properly.
Bombing Text: Corrected a text issue where the bombing run from ExoCorps was saying the space nations were doing it.
Loading Error Prevention: Added in some error prevention during savegame load, if certain objects were being discarded rather than kept.
Systems Integrity Log Error: Fixed an exception in the event log when bulk units were doing systems integrity attacks and you looked at it.
Oath Of Pacifism Description: Corrected the "Oath Of Pacifism" description to be accurate now that it is able systems-disruption damage to androids, mechs, and vehicles.
Warning On Save During Building Death: Quieted a harmless warning that could be thrown if a savegame was happening right when some building was destroyed but before it was fully removed from the game.
Prologue Description Fix: Corrected the description of the prologue in the Start New Profile screen to properly describe it as short but heavily branching.
Worker And Resident Exception Fix: Added in protection against issues with assigning workers and residents into buildings that are being torn down right as the calculation tries to run.
Early Questline Fix: Fixed issues where, now that you can build the liquid metal dragons during the grace period, you could actually go further in some questlines before the grace period was over.
Floating Point Aggro Fix: Fixed an issue where if the alarm was not tripped during "Floating Point Errors," then the units that spawned were still being heavily aggroed against the unit that took the action. That only happens now if the alarm is actually tripped.
Wastelander Contact Fix: Corrected the text in International Scrutiny so that it doesn't say you need Homo Obscurus. Instead, what you need is to have had the wastelanders contact an ExoCorp for you in the past. Also corrected the code so that this is now properly true in either doom set, as previously it was not checking that, but instead was checking that you had completed the umbilical collection quest. This also makes The Coming War not appear until it should.
ExoCorp Contact Text Fix: The text for contacting an ExoCorp is now entirely different if you're on the International Scrutiny path, so that it makes more sense in the context of all the ExoCorps attacking.
Slayer Mode Fix: Fixed some issues in recent updates that made Slayer mode not work properly (it was doing morale damage instead of physical). This was a bug introduced when systems disruption attacks were introduced.
Achievements Fixes: Fixed an issue where Budding Pacifist and Taking Extra Care were being triggered on normal starts of timelines beyond the first.
Destroyed Tower Fixes: Added in several layers of fallback for if you're in the main game (have started the dooms, have not reached the post-apocalypse) and your network tower gets destroyed. If you have secondary towers from grey goo, then it does some extra checks to make sure that one of them becomes your primary, or it unlocks your emergency network source if they're all gone. Previously it was only doing most of these checks on the exact moment of death of the existing network tower, and so if something went wrong with that, it could lead to you being stranded without a network in very rare and unlucky cases.
Missing Company Options Fix: Fixed two cases of inverted logic that was causing Coupon Program and Nicotine to not become available until after the Company Plateau, rather than during it.
Exceptions On Freezing Time: Fixed a couple of exceptions that could happen during the popups of unit deaths during combat, most notably if you froze time during their deaths to take a lot of screenshots.