Four substantial updates in one week, this week! Next week will be slower, as I'll be working on new late-game goal paths, and that takes a lot of time. That said, there's a lot of exciting things on the horizon over the next couple of weeks, including another feature update tomorrow.

Update 20 includes a lot of long-time player requests -- and some more from the last few days. The game has always supported borderless windowed, but now it does so in a manner that does not minimize when you click out of it. There's now a dedicated screen to seeing how much neural expansion you get from each source in a timeline. Several elements that were confusing to new players have been clarified. A couple of the weaker weapons have gotten buffs to ensure they remain interesting.

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.

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.

Thanks for reading and for playing.

Update 20 Changelog

Features

• True Borderless Windowed Mode: The game has been adjusted to be visible in the background if you switch away from it using OS hotkeys, or clicking to an adjacent monitor.
  

Clarity

• Clarity For Vorsiber Collaborators: If you are a Vorsiber Collaborator start, it now makes sure that you have the midsize microbuilder fabs from the very start of that point, and also makes sure that you are instructed to build those rather than the mini-fabs. This was biting some new players who were using this exit from the prologue.
  

• Flamethrower Math: When holding shift to see the expanded tooltip, Flamethrower now shows the math of how it gets to the amount of morale damage it will inflict.
  

• Quick Electrical View: Clicking the electricity display in the resource header now takes you directly into the input/output list for electricity.
  

• New Neural Expansion View: In the input/output screen of the Resources window, if you have unlocked seeing your intelligence class, Neural Expansion is now the second option in the menu, under Electricity. This shows you the details of where all of your neural expansion is coming from in the current timeline (it also shows contributions form other timelines in one lump amount, for reference).
  

Balance

• Firestarter: he AG-31 Relumine shotgun now has a new Firestarter feat attached to it, which sets targets on fire if they are vulnerable to that. The strength of the fire damage is 2.5x of what a Flamethrower does, but only applies to a single target rather than a group.
  

• High-Density Rounds Utility: These have been rebalanced so that they have less of a range penalty, give a little bit less of a damage boost, and give a powerfully-scaling armor-piercing boost.
  

• Shotgun Ambushes: The TS-11 Light Shotgun now gives a 3x Ambush feat (which does stack with other sources of Ambush), making it actually an interesting weapon for those that can use it. The TS-29 Shotgun, which is already quite useful, has been given a 1.5x Ambush value to make sure that it remains competitive in the spectrum of other weapons around the game.
  

• Precision Flamethrowing: Flamethrowers by non-shell-company operatives no longer hit units targeting your shell company, and vice-versa. This is much more in keeping with the nature of how the shell companies are meant to function combat-wise.
  

• More Targets Vulnerable To Fire: The following units were not considered Flammable for purposes of being able to be set on fire by flamethrowers or Firestarter, but now are: Vorsiber Soldier, Vorsiber Inquisitor, SecForce Negotiator, Citizen Advocate (both kinds), and PMC Troopers. Originally, the idea was that their armor protected them, but this was very unclear and gave the wrong impression, such as that perhaps the Fearless perk was blocking them from being set on fire. It also didn't feel right for balance in general.
  

• Nickelbot Engineering Balance: "Nickelbots Are The Worst" now only requires a Nickelbot with 116 engineering skill, rather than 140, making this a bit better balanced for early chapter two.
  

• Drone Cores: The Avionics Core has been split into that plus also a Drone Core. In chapter one, it was really easy to get into a spot where you could block yourself with building too many drone factories and then being unable to build the aerospace hangar.
  

Bugfixes

• Pathfinding Exception Fix: Hardened some of the npc pathfinding methods against having exceptions when a building has just recently been destroyed when they are trying to pathfind around.
  

• The Return Of Stealth Vehicles: Fixed a regression in Update 19 where I accidentally removed the ability to cloak from the Iris, Spectre, and Wraith vehicles. That has now been restored.
  

Full notes here.

Connect with the Machine

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