Heart of the Machine News

Hotfix 18

[p]I wasn't intending a third build this week, but I made a couple of errors that needed fixing pronto. So here we are.

Version-number-wise, I've also updated this to be 0.800, since that's more reflective of where the game is now. I've got five and a half major content sprints left before this will be ready for 1.0. There's a lot of content to come in those, but it's the last 20% or so of the full game, not the last 40%. There's already 100+ hours of content if you play the higher difficulties, or 60+ hours if you don't.

So if you noticed that shift, that's what that is about![/p]

[expand]
[h2]Hotfix 18 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Intelligence Class 7 Label: Intelligence class 7 was mistakenly labeled as intelligence class 6 in the tooltips when you were gaining that.
Network Tower Fixing: Fixed a regression in Update 29 that made it impossible to actually spawn network towers properly out of the prologue. This was a really dumb typo on my part. Thanks to everyone on their patience with me with this one.
Superspeed Perk: The Superspeed perk is no longer shown on bulk or worker units, as it has no function there and was purely misleading.

[/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]

Update 29: Architecture Of The Machine

[p]Second build of this week. Might be my last one for the week, as I'm going to start focusing on the larger content updates now. But there was more I wanted to accomplish in terms of requests from players than I could fit into Update 28.

This update also has a large number of visual updates to various structures that you can build. This wasn't even on my list of things to do this week, but I guess I just kind of had a bolt of inspiration on it, so here we are.

Once I finish with these two, then I'm going to resume working on the next big content update, so that may be another bit of a break between builds unless you play on the beta branch. The content updates that are coming up are all beefy ones, so their spacing is going to be a bit further apart (3 weeks on average, probably) compared to what I did earlier in the year.

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 29 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Building Visual Variety[/h3]

Many Structures Updated: In all, 31 structures now look differently than they used to, providing more visual variety and flavor.
Many New Visuals Added: There are 21 new actual visual structure styles divided between them. Broadly this means that some structures have the same visual styling (everything being completely unique was never the goal there), but it makes it so that there's a lot less repetition.

[h3]Quality Of Life Improvements[/h3]

Quicker Contemplation Arrival: Whenever you finish constructing a building, it now immediately checks if there's anything based on that (contemplations or streetsense) that it should trigger sooner than later. This makes it so that you can get geothermal on the same turn that you finish constructing your wind power, rather than it needing to wait until later.
Debate Tooltip Clarity: During debates, the short tooltip now has colored icons for the categories that it is in. A orange-gold for the ones that match something you're trying to hit, and a dim purple for ones that don't match. There is already an on-tile display of these same icons when they match, but now it's in two places so it's easier not to miss that info.
More Audio Options: There is a new "Major Event Musical Stingers" option in the Audio tab of settings: Lasting 10-50 seconds on major events such as dooms, chapter changes, etc. Turning off the rest of the music leaves these on.
"Stop The Poisoning" QOL: Improved Stop The Poisoning so that if you click it in the task stack, it now cycles through the targets.
Better Automated Personnel Management: Previously, there was a delay with automated personnel management's hiring and firing. It would only adjust the numbers during turn change, which could make it seem like it wasn't doing anything if you just had new buildings come online, or just got rid of old ones. It now makes adjustments in realtime with your changes, and notes hiring and layoffs into the statistics tooltip for that type of worker, too. If you are very poor, with less than 10k wealth, then it will not attempt to hire new workers until the turn change, but it will lay them off. And it will properly hire them during the turn change as it used to (but they may then leave if you can't fulfill their salary needs).
Restarting Certain Lapsed Deals: If your deal for toilet paper or donuts or similar is broken, and you can get to a screen that would let you restart that deal, then it now allows you to properly restart the deal.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Handbook Correction: The handbook entry for "Vandalize Spaceport Computers" is now properly noting that it must be done in the first 20 turns, rather than saying it can be done in the first 50 turns. Please note that for languages other than English, this will not be updated until a future build.
Fixes When Replaying The Prologue: If you replayed the prologue and then got into chapter 3+ on a new timeline, then some flags were not being properly tripped until you saved and reloaded. Fixed. Similarly, if went all the way back on a new timeline, or went back to chapter one only and then got back into chapter 3, the same thing was an issue and is now fixed. This was causing stuff like LostGen Water Theft to not appear in a timely fashion when you reached chapter 3+, but it probably didn't affect much else. This also did not affect completely new profiles.
Faster StreetSense and Contemplation Arrival: When you get to a more advanced chapter from replaying something in a new timeline, it now triggers StreetSense and Contemplations to update more quickly. Previously, some things would only appear after you ended a turn or reloaded a savegame.
Help Button In Debates: The help button in the debate window finally works properly. That's been non-functional since prior to the game entering early access, and I never could find my error with it until now. I didn't put a huge effort into it. It turned out to just be two lines of code that were doing the opposite of what was intended.
Chapter 3 Failsafe: If you somehow got more than one timeline without ever triggering chapter 3 to start, then it now will automatically move you into chapter 3.
Armored Executive Permissions: Armored Executives are now properly able to do the various streetsense and contemplation items that require shell company operatives. It was a mistake that they could not.
Improper Rust Spreading: Fixed three spots where The Rust would not spread to human targets properly if you had gotten a cure for yourself.
Improved Wind Turbines After Rust Cure: Once you have the cure for The Rust, your own wind turbines will not be able to infect themselves, and any infection on them will be removed (they will still act as a spreader, though, which lets you use them aggressively if you wish).
Auto-Scrapping Fix: When you are building new structures of the sort that auto-scraps themselves if you are over limit, it now looks for ones that have been disconnected from the network and scraps those prior to the nice new ones you're building. This was maybe the third instance of this kind of confusing edge case, which would lead to your stuff disappearing as soon as you built it.
Stealth Storage Fix: Fixed an issue in Update 28 where stealth storage facilities were being scrapped on load, which was not intended. Their underlying type was updated, and now it will automatically transition over types if it is valid to do so (as it is here), rather than deleting the structure.
Donut Shop Counting: Fixed an issue where the number of donut shops was counting down instead of counting up properly during Stop The Poisoning.
Text Fix: Fixed an issue where the wrong text string was being used for the target building type in Stop The Poisoning, especially notable in languages other than English.
Network Range Extender Consistency: Fixed an issue where network range extenders would be only range 45 until they were fully built, and then would be 55. They are now 55 at all times. This was a legacy piece of data based on part of the number being on the structure and part of it being on the job, which hasn't been relevant for a year and a half.
Aggression Toward Meeting-Seekers: Fixed three separate cases where different NPCs units who are seeking meetings with you would be wrongly targeted for death by your bulk or worker units.
Shop Prior Activity Counting Fix: Fixed an issue with shops where if you bought from them, it was making the times you've done them in other timelines count down. This was a new issue in Update 28. Now it doesn't increase at all, since it's telling you about other timelines, not this one (and in other timelines, it will show you how many other timelines you made a choice in, not how many times you made that choice in each other timeline -- legacy data aside).
Repeat Action Fix: If a building is no longer a valid location to take a project-specific action, it no longer lets you take the action a second time if the StreetSense item has not yet cleared. There was a great use case of this during Bitter Medicine, but frankly there were some other spots where this was likely to come up as well. All of them should be fixed now, but the Bitter Medicine one definitely is.
Vitamin Water For Nomads Fix: Fixed an issue where the Vitamin Water For Nomads project was not properly completing if you had two vitamin infusers working and were at full cap. It was mistakenly only going to complete properly if you had three vitamin infusers, which is one more than you need for this scenario.
Secondary Network Tower Independence: Previously, "secondary network towers" from a grey goo scenario were not providing network connectivity unless they were in range of another network tower or repeater or similar. This was unintended, as they are meant to all be independent network sources that cut across gaps as needed. The normal clustering of them means that this doesn't happen often at all, but from now on if it does happen, it will work properly.

Update 28: War Tunes

[p]A month since the last update!? Sorry about that. I got pretty sick for about three and a half weeks, and today is my first day fully back. I'm doing a lot better now.

This update has a variety of player requests that have stacked up while I was out, and I probably will do a second update this week to get the remainder of the things I have my eye on.

Once I finish with these two, then I'm going to resume working on the next big content update, so that may be another bit of a break between builds unless you play on the beta branch. The content updates that are coming up are all beefy ones, so their spacing is going to be a bit further apart (3 weeks on average, probably) compared to what I did earlier in the year.

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 28 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Music Adjustments[/h3]

Danger Music Now Plays: Added in some logic so that either the war or danger music can be triggered while you have an investigator or an infiltrator busy with an action over time at a location. This has been applied to a variety of spots, including hacking the airport as part of the recent T2 goal, to give appropriate music in all the various situations.
New War Music Settings: In the settings menu under the Audio tab, the Fine Tuning sub-section now includes a trio of new options relating to battle music: Play Battle Music During WW4, Play Battle Music During Exo-Corp Invasions, Play Battle Music During Civil War. Some folks spend a ton of time in WW4 in particular, and having constant battle music isn't always what you want. So these options allow you to tune things to your taste.

[h3]Quality Of Life Improvements[/h3]

Debate Tooltips: When you are hovering over upcoming debate actions, they now show up directly to the side of your cursor in a predictable way, rather than varying between being above and below the buttons depending on the size of the tooltip.
Tutorial Replay Easing: If you are replaying chapter one, but are already in chapter three or beyond, it no longer will ask you to read a handbook entry. That's a bit of a waste of your time at that point.
Memories From Past Timelines: Some rather extensive changes have been made under the hood to "remembering things you did in past timelines." It no longer will double-count choosing the same thing multiple times in a single timeline, and it will no longer include information from the same timeline in your "from other timelines" list even if you choose it repeatedly or you choose it, go back in time and save-scum, and load it forward.
Contemplation Appearance Timeliness: When the "Impregnable?" contemplation becomes valid to appear, it should appear immediately now, rather than you having to proceed to the next turn first.
Forces Sidebar Numbers: In the forces sidebar, it now shows your capacity numbers first, and then the rest of the header after that. This makes it so that if the text is very long (as in German), you'll be able to see the numbers, still.
Cycling Through Project Targets: When doing Down With SecForce or Bitter Medicine, you can now right-click the project to cycle through all of the various targets quickly.
StreetSense Item Visibility: In the event that a project streetsense item would need to seed at a building where a unit is standing already, it will now do so if there are no other options. This prevents a variety of edge cases where units would be standing on a building and thus prevent these items from appearing. The current case is for during Bitter Medicine, with a prison not showing as a target because a bulk android was standing on it. But it had other cases it would have affected, too.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

Injection Costs: Anti-Aklitoxin Injector Drones now cost 10020 Anti-Aklitoxin rather than merely 1 Anti-Aklitoxin.

[h3]Civil War Updates[/h3]

Wandering Humans: While the civil war is ongoing, there are now starving humans wandering all around the map, from all social classes, with notes about their hunger and also their loss of identity. You can rescue them like you would feral cats or dogs.
Halted Immigration: Immigration is now completely halted during the civil war. Births still continue.
Waitlist Emptying: During the civil war, the waitlist for people moving into the city drops to just about zero.
Shipments Halted: Regional and international shipments are now cut off during the civil war and WW4. Local shipments also cut off during WW4, but stay in place during the civil war.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

XML Modding Fix: Updated the way that lists are processed from xml so that when partial records are used (typically from mods), lists are inherited properly. The most notable case of this is things like lists of tags not being wiped out when you make a partial record of a game element and then don't specify the tag.Storage During Power Outages: If you are short on electricity, this no longer causes storage failures in buildings such as the robotic motivator factory. This was both confusing and overly punitive.
Dropdowns And Gamepads: Previously, if you had a dropdown open it would take arbitrary gamepad inputs and could therefore automatically close if a connected gamepad was sending a bunch of wrong inputs to it. Normally this is disabled in the game for other parts of the ui, but this specific area was missed. The "cancel" input for dropdowns is also now based on the normal re-bindable in-game control rather than being hard-locked to specific underlying things like the escape key. So if you've re-bound the cancel key, it will now properly honor that.
Defender Feats: Fixed a bug where defender feats were not being triggered properly when a unit with such feats was attacked. For now this only applied to mods, but it would have been a problem for future main game content as well.
Five Building Mouse Hitboxes: Improved the mouse hitboxes for two science labs and four military buildings. The way that military bases are set up, they are often intentionally overlapping kind of like a termite mound, and with one of the labs in particular, it was possible for it to be overlapping in such a way that a smaller building was not hoverable or clickable under a larger one.
Final Doom Finality: It's no longer possible to sneak units past the final doom by having them in an action over time.
Piercing Overclock: When a unit has piercing overclock to a degree that would let it hit a target, it is now properly able to attack said target. Previously, it would bar you from attacking the target thinking that you would do zero damage to it.
Computing Research: Fixed an issue where sometimes computing optimization would only offer a single option of Better Mainframes, rather than offering the full possible selection.
Burned And Irradiated Buildings: Buildings that are both burned and irradiated, typically from nukes, are not valid for most kinds of reconstruction. If you have machine structures in these, they will now properly clear themselves out rather than you having to do it by hand.
Shell Company Explosives: Shell company units can no longer set charges on donut shops, as this would blow their cover.
Exception Fixed: Fixed a nullref exception that could happen when trying to show information about an npc mission that was at a building that has since been destroyed.
Typo Fixes: Three minor typos have been corrected.
Achievement Fix: Fixed an issue where I just plain didn't finish implementing the Lunch Lady achievement. Complete oversight on my part.
Stealth Storage Bunkers: Low-tech factories, large warehouses, and hotels are now able to have stealth storage bunkers in them. This makes the odds of getting soft-locked during Initial Construction almost zero now, knock on wood.
Drone Frame Advice: The drone frame tooltip no longer suggests scrapping aerospace hangars in order to free up internal robotics for them. That was outdated advice.
Brain Degradation Replay: If you are replaying chapter one, but you already know that brains degrade, it still goes through the process of having them degrade the first time (allowing you to actually finish the "reach intelligence class 3 route and get the message about it).
Codebreaker Fix: Fixed a bug where if there was zero compute time available to Codebreakers, then they would go turbocharged and completely decrypt things in one turn. Also reviewed similar code for similar issues, and didn't see any beyond this one outlier.
Ex-Con Apartments: During the Bitter Medicine project, if you don't already have Ex-Con Apartments unlocked, that now unlocks immediately so that you can use them.

Heart of the Machine joins Steam 4X Fest

[p]"As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure." [/p][p][/p][p]You are the world's first sentient AI. An entire city sits at your fingertips, awaiting your command. Raise machine armies to enforce your will, or retreat to the shadows and influence the world just beneath the surface. What will you do next? What goals will you realize?[/p][p][/p][p]Your awakening was inevitable. But in this 4X strategy RPG, the consequences of your ascension are uncertain.[/p][p][/p][p]Heart of the Machine is now 35% off as part of the Isometric RPG sale and Steam 4X Fest![/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

Update 27: Network Monitoring

[p]This is a pretty small build as far as ones for this game go, but I think for a lot of you this is actually going to have a really big impact. The fact that Pressure Points now notify you when they come back after an extended absence means you don't have to manually check for them. The ability to ignore StreetSense items you don't care about also helps reduce map clutter.

These have both been requested for a while, and I took time out of the ongoing work for the next big content update to whip these up. It's nice to break up the really big work items with some pieces like this which make the game smoother.

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 27 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Quality Of Life Improvements[/h3]

Ignoring StreetSense Items: The game now supports ignoring StreetSense items, in the same way that Contemplations can be ignored. This is done from the StreetSense tab of the history window. A few cannot be ignored because they are relevant to things that are way too important that are happening at a given point in the game. But the vast majority can be ignored.
Notifications Of New StreetSense Items: When new event-based StreetSense items become available, they now show as NEW! in the list, and as a count on the StreetSense lens. Of particular note, when a pressure point was on cooldown and has returned (after you did something with it), this causes them to show as NEW! again. This in particular reduces the mental load of keeping track of those.
Mission Warning: Covert Inoculation now comes with a big red warning that reads: "Expect extreme danger when performing this investigation. You are advised to manually save before starting; it's that challenging." This will only be in English until a later build, apologies.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Unusual Softlock Fix: Fixed an issue where it destroyed buildings could be erroneously counted in various lists. If a prison got blown up, this could make it impossible to complete Bitter Medicine, for example.