Heart of the Machine News

• Honoring Rotations On Building Placement: Improved the way that building placement works when checking for collisions with things like POIs. It no longer blocks you when you're placing long buildings near something that doesn't intersect their short axis.
• Smoother Freestanding Building Placement: When building freestanding structures, it no longer factors in what buildings your mouse would collide with, which makes moving them around with the mouse a whole lot smoother. This was notably egregious when building over lots of buildings in CCA, but it was a problem in general, turns out.
• Victorious Timeline Control Lock Removed: Winning a timeline no longer locks you out of any of the interfaces on it. That way if things are desired to continue, they can. This means for either people who just want to play around with things with whatever the state their timeline is in, or for potential (hypothetical) T4 goals someday.
• Fixed Occasional Endless Angry Dudes When In Simplified Defenses Mode: Fixed an issue where if you were in Simplified Defenses complexity mode, you could accidentally get endless waves of harassers as your territory control flags.
• Fixed A Naughty Prologue Menu: Fixed an issue where if you were in the prologue, then the escape key would not work for opening the system menu. This was due to the fact that normally this would first deselect the unit you have selected, but deselecting the unit is not allowed at that point for tutorial purposes.
• Dialog Goal Hints: Dialog options that can end a path to any goal, or which can make progress toward a goal, are now able to show this. Right now the only one where that is relevant that I'm aware of is dealing with the Atca Retail President, and it now shows how that relates to Civil Spycraft. As with other places, it redacts this to a certain extent if you've never done it before, but it does show you that something will be continued or ended, just not what, if you're there the first time.
• Fix To Warehouse Shopkeepers Getting Sick Of You And Leaving: Fixed a surprising issue where the warehouse shops and a few other things could stop appearing if you had done them a really large number of times in a single timeline.

• Only Tell Me When It Matters: Four crossovers are now hidden, as they didn't actually do anything, but are potential expansion points for me later: Fungal Affinity, Tricked By Sedgesinax, Said Too Much To A Robot Dog, and Knowledge Of Wastelander Treason. I'm not removing them outright, as it's hard to get things like this back later if I want to hook off of them, which is why I added them early in the first place. But it was confusing having crossovers visible that don't do anything. Now all of the visible crossovers do in fact do something.
• Only Tell Me The Best Thing: The game now has a feature that lets it stop suggesting certain structures once other better ones have made those obsolete. That's now used for a number of the power generation facilities (where they conflict in internal robotics only), and also with the "well and filter."
• Pocket Reference: The goal tooltips are now more visually compact. It makes them easier to skim.
• Looking Down Instead Of Way To The Side: The tooltips for the two-line narrative buttons are now below or above them, same as the tooltips for the one-line narrative buttons. It's much easier to read those, this way.

• Now Front And Center: When you're starting a contemplation, it now shows the information about what goals the contemplation contributes to, with the ability to hover that and see what the goals are that are being discussed. This was previously only on the tooltip for the contemplations.
• That One Fork In The Road Everybody Misses The First Time: Added some yellow text to the "What Now?" project that explains that it's a goal fork, and you'll be doing one goal if that goes over 40%, while you can still do a different goal if it doesn't exceed that number.
• New Guidance On Choices: When you're viewing options in a contemplation, if those have an effect on what goals will be possible (as many of the forks in the game are in this sort of spot), it now shows information about that.
• Redacted Goals Until You Find Them Once: When you've never completed some goals, it now skips showing you information about them at all in contemplations, and contemplation options. This avoids spoilers before you've been there, but it then provides more information to aid in goal-navigation on timelines beyond the first.
• The List Of Full Redactions: When you've never completed some goals, it now skips showing you information about them at all in contemplations, and contemplation options. This avoids spoilers before you've been there, but it then provides more information to aid in goal-navigation on timelines beyond the first.
• The List Of Partial Redactions: These goals are now not shown much on contemplations-will-lead-you-here until you've completed the specific route you're on: Altered Growth. There are still a few spots it shows.
• Key Spots That Tell You A Bit More: The following branch-points now give a lot more information for players, respecting the above rules and showing "Unknown" when you haven't discovered them yet: Torment Nexus vs Mind Farms, To Kill Or Not Kill The AGI Researchers, Which Dragon To Build, Which ExoCorp To Contact, To Kill The Tradesman Or Not, Gloating Or Asking For Help, What To Do About Prisons.
• That One T2 That's So Hard To Find: In general, the information that leads you into For The Sake Of Those Bound is now a lot more informative. That was missing on many of the contemplations.
• If I Murder Him I Can't Do His Quest!?: In general, if a choice will close off a goal path, then it now shows that. It may only show "Unknown" if it's one of the more-secretive paths that you've never done yet, but it is at least clear you're closing something off.

• Such An Admirable Way To Act: The various "No Murders" routes in the game that used to give 25 Aetagest now give 1 Daring.
• Wait, What's This?: The "No Nicotine" challenge for Willing Rejection of Reality now gives 2 Daring rather than 25 Aetagest.
• But Why Donuts?: The "Extra Sprinkles" challenge from Cult Of Danver now gives 2 daring rather than 25 Aetagest.
• Actual Admirable Achievements: In The Great And Terrible Protector, the No Nervous Breakdown challenge now gives 3 Daring rather than 50 Aetagest, and the "No Deaths From Exposure" gives 6 Daring rather than 100 Aetagest.
• Cozy Rewards: Post-Apocalyptic Titan now gives 8 Daring in addition to the 200 Aetagest that it was already giving. For a no-murders route, it also gives an additional 6 Daring. This brings it a bit more in line with "Lower Levels Of Survival," which was already giving a lot of Daring.
• Equality In Motivations: Both paths through For The Sake Of Those Bound give 12 Daring, rather than one of the two giving 6.

• Now With 40,000 Fewer Guards In A Tiny Space: Fixed an issue where POI guards in the "tag 2" and "tag 3" slots could build up to infinitely-too-many numbers. This was a bug in the code that dates back to October 30th, 2024. However, it just never really kicked in until lately, because I fixed some of how the reinforcements were working in recent builds, and that then caused them to run into this bug.
• Fixed Overly Paranoid Clocks: If you have skipped past a doom, then on the victory progress screen it no longer shows a negative number on the dooms list on the overview tab. It was already correct on the dooms tab, but was very confusing on the overview.
• Fixed The Interface Remaining Fearful Of A Box: Fixed an issue where "Look In The Box" might not disappear properly after you did, in fact, look in the box.

In all genres of gaming, you'll find those that are gluttons for punishment. You might initially think of players completing Elden Ring without leveling up, or trying to beat Silksong's single-life Steel Soul mode, but the best strategy games are also home to some serious sadists. This led to an interesting situation for Heart of the Machine developer Arcen Games when it recently delivered a substantial update that made some of its more frustrating endgame elements a bit less brutal, only to receive requests for a way to turn the difficulty back up. The result? 'Misery mode.'

Read the rest of the story...

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• Good Lord, Warn Me About That!: If you try to delete a timeline, there's now a message asking if you're sure, and telling you not to worry about negative crossovers.
• Meltdowns Are Pretty Hostile: Tampering with nuclear power plants now shows up under the Hostile Actions section of the StreetSense filter. Because... ah... yeah, obvious, probably.
• How To Avoid Accidental Murder: Added the following text to "Secure A Cybercratic Haven:" If you want to be sure Predators don't murder anyone, then visit the Workers tab in Command Mode and disable Worker Predators.
• Chapter 4 Rules-Lawyering: The description for chapter 4 has been updated to note that you can't attempt Tier 3 Goals until you're in chapter 4, since that's now the rule.
• Who Hates You?: For any bulk or worker units that belong to you, and converted troops, you can now see what cohorts they have angered. If they have angered an allied POI guard, then the allied POI guard is justified in attacking them, and now you can actually tell when that's the case.

• Need More Armor!: Space Nations battleships and titans have been increased from 4200 armor to 6400, and 6600 armor piercing.
• I'm A Totally Different Mech Now, What Do You Mean I Shot You?: When you capture an unit and add it to your converted troops, any cohorts it had angered are cleared away.

• Blow Up The Spaceport And Find Out: The fences don't count, and the small things like mech parts factories also don't. But if you hit anything actually core to the spaceport, then you're sure to meet some Space Supremacists. If you damaged the spaceport in this way in the past, then expect Space Supremacists out of nowhere.
• Get Tricked Again: If you've met someone tricky, and you've found some interesting data hidden in a certain T1 goal after doing a certain T2 goal, then a whole other way to meet Space Supremacists comes up. This gives a lot of Daring, even on normal difficulty, so it's worth doing.
• English Only For About Two Weeks: This section is only going to show up if you're playing the game in English until the current localization pass is finished. Apologies for that.

• Those Idiot ExoCorps: If you have three hatred of Vorsiber, there is now an "International Misdirection" pressure point that allows you to nullify dooms 2, 3, and 5 of international scrutiny. It costs 60 creativity to actually do the nullification, and you can only nullify a single doom in this hatred-fueled way in a given timeline.
• Take That, Space Nations: If you have three hatred of Vorsiber, there is now a "Space Nation Misdirection" pressure point that allows you to nullify doom 5 of vorsiber's wrath. It costs 60 creativity to actually do the nullification, and you can only nullify a single doom in this hatred-fueled way in a given timeline.
• Unspecified Scandals: If you have three hatred of Vorsiber, there is now a "Scandalous Distraction" pressure point that allows you to nullify dooms 3 and 8 of vorsiber's wrath. It costs 60 creativity to actually do the nullification, and you can only nullify a single doom in this hatred-fueled way in a given timeline.
• English Only For About Two Weeks: This section is only going to show up if you're playing the game in English until the current localization pass is finished. Apologies for that.

• Rust The Prison Mechs: If you have the Rust outbreak happening during the prison drive, and the humans don't yet have filters, then it either prevents it from starting, or cuts it short.
• But What If There's No Prisons Left?: If you have completed For The Sake Of Those Bound prior to the prisoner drive doom from Vorsiber's Wrath, then that doom is skipped entirely. If you complete it during that doom, then the doom gets canceled.
• Feeding Everyone: Once you have food independence in your cyberocracy, AND are actually providing food, then if there is a famine doom going on, that gets canceled. Note that this is beta-only right now.

• Stop Beckoning So Early: The End Of Time Beckons is no longer available until chapter 3, in case you somehow get to only having The Revelation visible without being intelligence class 4. The new "Consider Starting A New Timeline" alert now only shows if you are intelligence class 4, to avoid confusion there as well.
• Bootstrapped Modern Mind: A couple of paragraphs have been removed from Bootstrapped Mind, as they refer to something that no longer exists.
• Misery Loves Restrictions: Fixed an issue where easier combat and a bunch of other simplified-complexity options were available on Misery when they should not have been. This was specifically already disallowed on Extreme, but wasn't functioning properly on Misery.
• Chapter One Stall(s): Fixed a major issue where if you were using the Simplified Economy and playing the non-fire-based path of the game, then there would come a point where some NPCs would not spawn to talk to you unless you saved and then reloaded a save. This could lead to you being out of things to do in chapter one. Also would happen on the full economy in the no-landlord (fire-based) path.
• No Nukes For You!: Fixed an issue where if you were playing a stealth build, then the Homunculus Rocket Factory, Atomic Transmuter, and Nuclear ICBM Factory would all be unavailable after you researched them.
• You Had One Shot At Enriching Uranium: If your technician died while developing the uranium enrichment process, then it was not properly allowing you to try again.
• Seriously, People Are Still Alive: The game has been adjusted to not allow the "Population Zero" achievement to trigger until the game is at least 10 seconds fresh from loading, rather than three. I'm couldn't actually duplicate the problem this time, so hopefully this solves it for the people who could.
• Be Brave, Reinforcements!: Fixed an issue where if third parties killed all of the guards at a POI, then that would cause the POI to not get reinforcements for quite some time. This was a change introduced in Update 38, back in October. It really should only apply when your own units have been the ones to clear the POI, and so that's how it works now.
• Be Smart, Reinforcements!: Fixed an issue where an older system for keeping reinforcements carriers from clumping up too much on each other was actually blocking them from doing the reinforcements once they got there. That didn't play well with the changes from Update 38, so those are now two separate setups.
• Stop Hitting Yourself: Designate Coordinated Attack should no longer be able to accidentally target one of your own allies, or indeed one of your own units.
• What Chapter Is It!?: Fixed an issue where on the victory progress screen, the chapter you were currently in was showing as incomplete. It now shows as "current," to save on confusion.
• Piss Off, Ghosts: There was a rare issue where "phantom" buildings could appear in the wrong item category, and thus not be interactive, but still block your buildings. These now self-correct when being placed, and also self-delete if you move your cursor over them when trying to build over them, and also self-delete on savegame load.
• Hacking Your Allies!?: Hacking allied player mechs now properly captures them, rather than having them still belong to the ally and yet sort of also be yours. This is retroactively fixed on existing saves.
• Well, They Were Traitors, Too: Fixed an issue where some allied POI guards were still too aggressive in wanting to kill some of your units.
• One Serving Per Customer: Fixed an issue that could give you doubled dark matter particles for one turn.
• Piss Off, Kids In My Basement: If you ever did the "Impressive Dragon!" contemplation and met the lost kids, then the "trapped kid" contemplation won't show up.
• Uhh, You Should Shoot Those Guys: Fixed an issue where the Anti-AI Ops for rebels were set up a bit wrong, and so your bulk units wouldn't realize they were supposed to shoot those aggressors.