Heart of the Machine News

Update 43: Opening The Armory

[p]I'm very excited about the sheer number of new options for you to customize your units in this build! This one has 3 new augments for androids, 2 augments for vehicles, the first 5 armors for vehicles, 6 new augments for mechs, and 5 new armors for mechs (each in two variants for small and large mechs). Overall, 26 new pieces of equipment.

There are also a number of units that have additional equipment slots, and various other balance items and bugfixes. The names of the equipment won't be localized to non-English languages until next week, but since that winds up mostly being cosmetic (since all the stats are in your respective languages), I decided to go ahead and bring this out now.

In other news, I've been working hard on Civil Spycraft and some other late-game content. Part of that just went to the localization teams, and that same part is now out on the beta branch here. If you want to check that out, you can use the password previewterminator to opt into the beta. All of those bits are only in English until the official launch, though.

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 43 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Clarity[/h3]

"Obscured By Clothing" Removed: This perk is now gone, instead with all of its versions just being Blending In. This is simpler for players, and less clutter visually.
Final Doom Wording Clarity: The in-game text now makes it clearer that you'll be dealing with a "post-apocalyptic aftermath" rather than not specifying a noun.
Investigation Clarity: When you're doing one investigation that requires work over time, it no longer blocks other investigations that just require site visits.
Investigation Snapping: Improved the snapping of the cursor to nearby investigation targets.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

Meaningful Social Change: Rather than failing this project when you start doing For The Sake Of Those Bound, it instead shifts so that the percentage goes up some based on what you've done in that other project, and then is completed as a success when you complete that other project. There's a nontrivial amount of strategic resources this grants you, as well as being clearer.
Buff To Nuclear Power Skimmers: These now generate 100k more power each.
Sledge Equipment Slots: They now have two armor slots rather than one (it layers them on top of each other), and also an augment slot (they previously did not have this at all). This is a HUGE buff, so they can be a real walking tank.
Predator Augment Slot: They now have an augment slot for the first time. Less dramatic than the Sledge boosts, but it's still an interesting buff.
Unwaveringly Aggressive: The Oath Of Pacifism now can't be used by Predators, Harbingers, or Carvers. This is mostly thematic.
Unchangeable Cognition: Sledge, Predator, Keanu, and Carver are now barred from using Additional CPU, Smart Pistol, Book Of Rhetoric, Spooky Nonsense Generator, and Propaganda Circuit. This is mostly thematic.
Infallibly Kind: Sledges cannot use Rage Circuit or Saw Arms, which they otherwise would now be getting. This is mostly thematic.
Debate Seeds Shift Over Time: Every turn, the set of what comes up in a given debate scenario now changes, rather than being locked to whatever you initially find. This makes it so that if you run into an insane scenario (the third writ is notorious for this), then you're able to try something different.
Armor Slot For Bastion: That lets it join the foundry, troopship, mindport, and mech carrier in having armor, which is new for vehicles this build.
Doubled Mech Carrier Armor: This ultimate vehicle now has 2 armor slots, rather than 1, making them kind of like Sledges in terms of how beefy they are from a vehicle standpoint.
Buffed Vehicle CPUs: The Additional CPU equipment for vehicles now has a base of 60 engineering rather than 40, to match the android version.
Loudspeakers Removed From Shoulders: Infrasonic Loudspeakers on androids can now be used by any android with augment slots, not just those that can handle shoulder mounts.

[h3]New Android Equipment[/h3]

Hydraulic Musculature: Available at intelligence class 6. Augment that increases intimidation by 24, strength by 60, and gives recoil suppression.
Saw Arms: Available at intelligence class 6. Augment that increases attack power by only 10, fear attack power by 70, and intimidation by 140.
Quantum CPU: Available for Souldroids when at intelligence class 4. Augment that increases cognition by the same amount as the regular "Additional CPU" (including any after-market upgrades), and then increases both hacking and net control by 60 each. VERY useful.

[h3]New Vehicle Equipment[/h3]

Ultralight Components: Available at intelligence class 3. Augment that increases attack range by 16, move range by 30, and reduces health by 180. And yes, this stacks. Super useful on units like Iris.
Drone Dock: Available at intelligence class 3. Augment that increases attack range by 20 and drone quality by 100, but reduces attack power by 100. Incredibly useful for Mindports, among others.
Chromium Plating: Good health. New armor gained when you get Ultralight Plating for androids.
Depleted Uranium: Beefy but slowing. New armor gained when you get 35mm Halfplate for androids.
Heptagonal Tungsten: More action points! New armor gained when you get Tungsten Plate for androids.
Active Graphene Mesh: Some health, but a lot more movement. New armor gained when you get the android version of this.
Technologist Hardpoints: Not much health, but a ton of drone quality, scavenging skill, and engineering skill. New armor gained when you get Diamond Nanothread Weave for androids.

[h3]New Mech Equipment[/h3]

Basic Augments: From the start of the game, there is now an Additional CPU and Optical Processing Priority augments available for mechs, matching those that are available on androids (unlike the vehicular variants, there is cognition added for the CPUs).
Drone Dock: Available at intelligence class 3. Augment that increases attack range by 20 and drone quality by 150, but reduces attack power by 100. This is a more extreme counterpart of the new vehicular augment by the same name.
Shoulder-Mounted Rockets: Available at intelligence class 3. Augment gives attack power, range, and intimidation. Everything but the range is doubled from its android counterpart with the same name.
Shoulder-Mounted Lasers: Available when its android counterpart is unlocked. Augment gives huge attack power, lowered range, and huge armor piercing. Everything but the range is doubled from its android counterpart.
Infrasonic Loudspeaker: Available when its android counterpart is unlocked. Augment gives a bit of argument attack power, notable attack range, and huge fear attack power. Everything but the range is doubled from its android counterpart.
Chromium Plating: Really good health. Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get Ultralight Plating for androids.
Incandescent Uranium: Good health, great intimidation. Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get 35mm Halfplate for androids.
Heptagonal Tungsten: More action points! Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get Tungsten Plate for androids.
Active Graphene Mesh: Some health, but a lot more movement. Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get the android version of this.
Cubic Boron Rails: Tiny health, but solid drone quality, and extremely high attack range increase. Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get Diamond Nanothread Weave for androids.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

But You Promised You Wouldn't Complain: Fixed an issue where the tungsten methylator was complaining on your HUD in the TPS Report category when it should not have been.
Armored Executive Was Lonely: Fixed an issue where if you were in the setup phase in a fresh timeline and had chosen a start with the shell company involved, then the Senior Technician and Economic Transport would not be unlocked until you ended the first turn. They are now available right away.

[/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 23

[p]One fix and one clarity improvement.[/p]

[expand]
[h2]Hotfix 23 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Clarity[/h3]

Purple Murnong Visibility: Adjusted the icon of purple murnong transports to be that of purple murnong, so that you can see it at a glance in the Forces tab. Also adjusted these to show in the Forces tab even if you've not filtered to a specific sub-section.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Properly Forcing Conversations Again: Fixed an issue where force conversation was not working properly in the prior build with who was supposed to be only spoken to by an armored executive.

Update 42: Enemy Protocol

[p]Nothing all that large in this one, in the main -- just general housekeeping. This makes some things smoother and clearer, and resolves the bulk of the items reported or requested by players in the last little while. A couple of the bugs are rather humorous.

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 42 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Clarity[/h3]

Understanding When It's World War 4: If you are in the part of the game where you have triggered the inevitability of WW4, but you have not yet actually gotten the goal completion for it yet, the game now shows a message in the task stack stating that this is "Early WW4" and how much longer you need to survive for it to be full-blown.
Analysis Lens Color Clarity: Fixed the Deterrence Coverage and Protection Coverage descriptions to be accurate to the current color scheme. The colors were adjusted in the past to be more clear, but the description did not match.
Decimal Feats: Fixed a visual issue where feats were not always shown as a decimal, but instead sometimes were shown as a rounded integer.
Nonplussed: Removed the plus sign in front of the feat number on equipment, so that it is more likely that players will realize that the highest value is taken rather than them being additively taken. That's a fairly minor detail most of the time, which the "Feats" entry in the "Status Effects" section of the handbook mentions.
Infinity War: If you are in the full WW4 scenario, it no longer shows a military invasion of 99 turns, but instead shows an infinity symbol and says WW4, with some other added notes for this.
Units Crying Wolf: Fixed an issue where if you hovered over a unit that you could select, it would show some random incoming damage predictions rather than what was actually planned against it for the moment. I can't believe nobody ever noticed this or said anything, as it's not new at all. Anyway, it's fixed now.
Knowing Their Fate At A Glance: Added the incoming damage to NPC/bulk units and structures, to match how it works (properly now) when you hover your own units.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

Setup Phase Generosity: During the setup phase of the game, you now are given a constant minimum of 5k Scandium, Alumina, and Neodymium rather than 2k. 2k was not enough to set up shell company buildings, which was annoying.
PMC Impostors Blend In: PMC Impostors now have the Blending In perk as well as their PMC-related ones. This makes it so that they can be used for things like Excuses and Justifications can be done by them.
So Do Basic Armor And Hoodies: MilStyle Armor now also grants the Blending In perk, as does Security Jacket, on top of the other perks they grant.
Extra Enemy Politeness During Setup Phase: Since this was confusing to people, vulnerable structures (those with insufficient protection or deterrence) don't cause any aggressive enemies to spawn during the setup phase. Same with vulnerable territory control flags. Originally it was meant to only be counter-attacks that were suppressed during this phase, but the distinction between those was not adequate.
Enemies More Punctual When Attacking You For Revenge: There are some intentionally-delayed "I hate you and want revenge" spawns, but those are now a lot less delayed than they were before. Also, in general, when countdowns finish to a revenge spawn, it now finishes the countdown earlier in the turn-change logic so that any enemies that should immediately spawn will now do so.
Enemies Not Showing Up For Revenge Mid-Turn Just Because You Visited A Shop: Adjusted things so that certain kinds of NPC managers (revenge spawns among them, but there were 56 spots in all that got this change) won't ever spawn new units except during turn-change. This prevents them from spawning when you force conversations, complete contemplations, interact with StreetSense, and so on.
Immediate Visibility When Equipping Scopes: After any of the stats of your units change (not your bulks and workers and converted, since those don't matter for this), it does a visibility recalculation pass. This is a big improvement for when you increase the attack range of a unit, you get vision from them right away rather than the vision not increasing until some unit moves.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Armored Executive Exclusive Discussions: Fixed a generalized issue where if a dialog was supposed to be between some third party and one of your armored executives, then it would actually allow any of your shell company units to do it.
My Great Shame: Fixed a surprising typo (they're instead of their) in the sheltered citizen tooltip.
Inability To Finish Breaking Into Prisons: Fixed an issue where the "Now What?" project could not progress properly, and did not register your investigations with Liquid Metal. The same problem was there with the Yinshi Umbilicals not giving you any umbilical cords after you snuck in.
Mimic Journey Deja Vu: Fixed an issue where you could send mimics out of the city twice (and have the same thing happen both times) if you sent them out without the thumper designs, and then got the thumper designs, and then sent them out again. It now properly blocks the second case if you already did the first case, as the two are meant to be different wordings for the same thing in slightly different circumstances, not two distinct events.
When Investigation Spots Get Nuked: In the event that an investigation target has been destroyed -- nuked, burned down, whatever -- that investigation target is now properly removed, rather than still being a place you can investigate as if it was still there.
404 Investigator Not Found: If you are in the "Now What?" project and trying to investigate more prisons, but the investigation is missing, it now self-corrects that. However, if it can't find any functional prisons after 12 seconds of you having loaded the game, then it fails the project with the note that somehow there are no more prisons on the map (this is usually because of them all being nuked or similar).
Enemy Status-itis Finally Cured: Fixed a longstanding issue where any unit afflicted by a status effect would randomly lose some health or morale. It was some sort of threading issue when calculating status intensities during initial load of a savegame. I solved this by having it recalculate the status intensity after all the other data is loaded and a one-second delay. In all of the existing cases now, except where savegames were saved-over, loading them should now have the original health and morale that was saved.
Ghosts Exploration Sites: Fixed an issue where exploration sites could be kind of there (but not really there) if you had completed them but they were still locked to a location. They were invisible on the map and in the listing, but would show up in the totals, being very confusing.

Hotfix 22

[p]Three fixes I figured I would go ahead and get out quickly.[/p]

[expand]
[h2]Hotfix 22 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Enthusiasm In The Wrong Direction: Fixed an issue where Enthusiastic Cultivation was granting Computing Host upgrades rather than Cultivator upgrades. This fix is not retroactive in existing saves for upgrades already wrongly applied, but any new upgrades will apply correctly. I also verified that none of the other VR upgrades were wrong.
Log Clutter: Fixed an issue with the prior build where some excess stats were being logged on adjusting game settings.
Sleep Mode Awakening Improvements: The game no longer allows for "delta times" for a frame more than 1000 milliseconds. This would normally be indicative of something like the OS having been put into sleep mode and then resuming. Depending on the OS. The overall time that was taken could be reported as a giant delta on return, on the order of hours, which could lead to the logged amount of time in a given timeline counting up a bunch under these specific circumstances. It didn't affect anything else.

Major Update 41: VR Management And Modding

[p]This is another really big update in a relatively short succession. Major updates are normally supposed to have larger gaps between them, but this is just how it worked out.

This build includes a huge amount of new stuff related to the VR World and Torment Vessels, and how you can manage those. This is something that people have been waiting on since the start of Early Access, and it was one of the biggest "early things that are incomplete" that a lot of people would notice.

This build also has a bunch of updates to the modding framework to make it more powerful (and to make it fully function in general). There have been several folks who already were working on some mods, most notably Pingcode and Puffin. However, they very generously donated their work to be part of the actual main game, so there haven't been any actual example mods around for prospective modders to look at. I've therefore added two of those (one that is more xml-focused, the other of which includes code) that are now shipped with the game. As mods to play with, they're not terribly interesting, but they're kind of case studies.

There's other bits in this build as well, but those are the highlights. Big builds have been coming rapidly in the last week, which is just kind of a coincidence. There's going to be a bit of a quiet period while I get the next batch of big builds ready to go -- Civil Spycraft is up next, and then I'm on to the Tier 3 goals, etc. There are, overall, 5 big sprints left before this game is ready for 1.0.

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 41 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]VR World Adjustments[/h3]

Overdrive Category Removed: The "Overdrive VR Patrons" patrons VR screen category has been removed, with its functionality actually taking place in the "Alter VR World" and "Manage Tormented Humans" categories, rather than being separate.
10 New Achievements: These new achievements are all related to the VR screen in some fashion, and the harder ones of them encourage you to mix and match "nice" VR with torment vessels in some interesting ways.
Crystallized Emotions: There are 3 new strategic resources, which are crystalized brain waves in various ranges that correspond to actual emotions or mental states in the real world. These are fear (5 hertz delta waves), calm (3 hertz delta waves), and exhilaration (20 hertz beta waves). Fear is related to the torment vessels, while the other two are related to the main VR world.

[h3]Alter VR World[/h3]

Focal Overdrive: +1 mental energy, but costs a ton of Calm per turn.
Excitement Overdrive: +1 mental energy, but costs a ton of Exhilaration per turn
Client-Side Investment: Invest Calm, get Computing Client internal robotics.
Server-Side Expansion: Invest Calm, get Computing Host internal robotics.
Enthusiastic Cultivation: Invest Exhilaration, get Cultivator internal robotics.
Enthusiastic Networker: Invest Exhilaration, get Network Attendant internal robotics.
Aviation Enthusiast: Invest Exhilaration, get Avionics Core internal robotics.
Storage Expansion: Invest Exhilaration, get VR Pod Chamber internal robotics.
Stockpile Wisdom: Convert Calm into Wisdom, max 20.
Stockpile Apathy: Convert Exhilaration into Apathy, max 20.
Armor Study: Invest Calm, get Armor Plating upgrades for all your mechs (both captured and those that are part of your consciousness).
Smashing Printers: Invest Exhilaration, make your Officemancer printer summons beefier.
Bootstrapped Improvement: Invest Calm into upgrading Compute Time output from all your mainframes.
Vice Recording: Privacy? Who cares! Exhilaration is converted into Weaponized Vice over time. Harbingers can use this to temporarily stun any human target.
Neverending Party: Calm is eliminated, but half of it is converted into Exhilaration.
Quiet Hours: Exhilaration goes away, but half of it becomes Calm.
Improved Realism: Increases both Calm and Exhilaration, but costs more Compute Time the more patrons you have.
Dragon Adventures: People embark on detailed fantasy adventures. Costs a ton of Compute Time for you to be their DM, but generates a ton of Exhilaration.
Petting Zoo: Compute Time in, Calm out. Also dragons.
Meditative Zones: Very low amount of Compute Time in, moderate Calm out.
Tower Of Otherworldly Vices: Humans are icky. Somehow you're not surprised that this is the first thing half of them want to get up to in a virtual world. Way to farm Exhilaration.
Emergency Overdrive: Restore all your Mental Energy at once (!), but at a massive calm/exhilaration cost and with income for those halting for 20 turns.

[h3]Manage Tormented Humans[/h3]

Rooms Of Reprieve: Fear production drops by half, but neural expansion gradually improves, per torment vessel, until it has doubled.
Torment Overdrive: +1 Mental Energy in exchange for a huge Fear investment per turn.
Emergency Harvest: Restore all your mental energy (!), but at the cost of a huge amount of Fear, plus the deaths of a ton of your tormented humans.
Virtual Tormentors: AI agents harass the occupants. Get more Fear, but it costs Compute Time and some of the humans die from the added stress.
Military Simulation: Watching former soldiers in simulated military engagements is very helpful. Fear is gradually converted into attack power improvements for all your robotic units (regular, bulk, captured, worker, vehicular, and mech).
Network Simulation: Simulating a network between your organic processing units, and then dissecting that network, is great practice at hacking. Fear is gradually converted into hacking improvements for all your Souldroids.
Expanding For War: Invest Fear over time into getting War Captain internal robotics. These are rare and powerful!
Storage Expansion: Invest Fear over time into getting VR Pod internal robotics.
Toxic Mind: Fear is converted into Corrosive Network Packets over time. These can be used by Mindrunners to destabilize the smart-nanotech components in human mechs' armor. This is a permanent debuff to targeted enemies.
Cultivate Insanity: Fear is converted into Weaponized Panic over time. That can be used by Harbingers to do massive morale attacks even on Fearless enemies.
Stockpile Cruelty: Convert Fear into Cruelty, max 20.
Stockpile Apathy: Convert Fear into Apathy, max 20.
Low Visibility Mode: Suppress the amygdalas of the organic processing units, removing any sense of fear (but pain remains). Your torment vessels no longer require deterrence, but also stop generating Fear.
Liquefaction: Unlocks a structure that can turn canned protein straight into TPN. Liquefying the dead to feed to the living.

[h3]Mod Framework Updates[/h3]

It Works, Yo: Various bits did not work, but now do. There weren't any active mods for me to notice the non-functional bits.
Architecture, Baby: Several pieces of code that will be popular with modders have been broken up into more effective parts. Having had to deal with constantly breaking mods from core game code updates to AI War 2 for half a decade, I'm inclined to minimize that here as much as possible.
Consolidated Metadata: The data for how mods describe themselves to the game (and thus to players who might want to turn them on) has been extended a lot. It's easier for modders to manage, and it includes new features like multiple language support, etc.
Mod Load Order: When mods depend on mods, that gets messy if there isn't something to control the load order. In AI War 2, that onus was left to the player for the most part, with a central file to edit if it became relevant. With this game, there are features that let the modders themselves adjust things so that it should "just work" for players, when that ever becomes relevant. In the case of no dependencies, the order doesn't matter in these two games, for now. If I someday need to make additional options here, it's not a big deal.
Localization For Mods: Mods now have the option of hooking into the localization framework, so that if they have visible text additions or changes, that can be translated into the languages of the game. Normally this work on the main game is done by a team of very skill translators, but mods are unofficial content. It has a spot to let people know if they are machine-translated, or if the modder had native speakers localize things properly. To me, the key thing is making the tool available.

[h3]New Mods (Mainly Examples)[/h3]

Simple Economy: Created by me. Serves as an example mod, as well as making aspects of the economy much easier for any players who want to use it. It mostly deals with stuff your humans need. Really, don't get too excited -- unless you were wanting to see how an xml-only mod would work, in which case take a look and get very excited. It's all completely open for you to copy, edit, etc.
Nuclear Infantry: Also by me. Another example mod, this time with example code. This makes it so that every time you basic infantry (commonly found in military bases) lands a hit on a target, a small nuclear explosion happens where the target was. That's kind of funny, actually. But the main purpose here is to provide a template code project that modders can copy and then do their own thing with. It's a lot easier than you might expect, but without a template project like this in place, it was understandably intimidating to folks.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Sleep Is No Longer Criminal: Corrected the icon for androids in torpor. It was showing a balaclava when it should have been showing an hourglass.
Properly Notate Android Suffering: Fixed an issue where the All Systems Red achievement was not properly set up to trigger.
Suppressed Emotions Of Robot Dogs: Corrected Spy Dogs to no longer be stubborn, as they are robots and are therefore not susceptible to morale attacks in the first place.
Properly Realize You've Been Tricked: Fixed an issue where the Tricked By Sedgesinax achievement was not registering properly.
Rare Background Sorting Error Fix: Fixed an exceedingly rare background-thread list sorting error that could throw a visible error when it should not have. In cases where this would have happened, it would have self-corrected either within 1 second or 0.25 seconds anyway, so it was harmless but seemed like an issue to players (understandably) when it popped up.
Rare Health Bar Self-Implosion Fix: Fixed another exceedingly rare exception that could happen when drawing health bars if certain math were just out of range. This would prevent play until the error was ignored, and would massively slow down the game while happening. It now avoids this error by clamping to ensure that it doesn't go out of bounds this way.
Roaches Return, To Much Rejoicing: Fixed an issue where Alumina Roaches were no longer available in new timelines in the game since the wallripper ability was converted into a StreetSense action. The alumina roach now unlocks at the same time it used to, and will automatically fix missing roaches on load of existing savegames.