The Machine expands, and so do your choices. Update 10 marks the first steps toward a less linear early game, giving players more side content and freedom to explore beyond the tutorial’s structure. This is just the beginning—future updates will build on this, opening up more pathways early on so players can engage with the game’s deeper mechanics sooner.
One major addition is unit-specific badges, a shift that makes certain androids and operatives stand out. Normally, all units are interchangeable—expendable, even—but now you can create heroes of your own making. These consumable badges, available at Intelligence Class 5, let you boost individual units with permanent enhancements… until they’re destroyed, of course. Alongside this, the Android Torpor action gives you a way to shelve units for later, ensuring your best assets aren’t wasted before their time.
Meanwhile, StreetSense and Scavenging Site filters make resource tracking smoother, debates with the wealthy have been rebalanced for a touch of realism, and Dual Handguns now actually pull their weight.
It’s a small step toward bigger changes, with more on the way. The Machine shifts—where you take it from here is up to you.
"The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn." — The Discovery of the Future, H.G. Wells
Building the Machine
The Machine shifts, recalibrates, and occasionally acknowledges your existence. Every change—whether it’s untangling targeting logic, adjusting enemy behavior, or ensuring the correct volume of existential dread—comes from the feedback you provide.
Keep sharing your thoughts, and if you haven’t yet, leave a Steam review—your words help determine what this world becomes.
Update 10 Changelog
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- Early Contemplations & Dog Rescues: Contemplations now unlock much earlier in Chapter One, and the ability to rescue dogs has been moved up as well.
- Bulk Android Squads & Converted Units: Now provide clear feedback when attempting to load them into transports, noting that it's not possible and why.
- Permanent Unit Badges: Consumable items have been added that grant permanent badges to individual units, enhancing them beyond their usual capabilities. However, these upgrades do not apply to unit types—if the specific unit dies, the badge is lost.
- Intelligence Class 5 Badge Unlocks: Upon reaching Intelligence Class 5, the first four badge-granting consumables become available: Sprinter, Wizard, Wall, and Intimidating Shadow.
- Android Torpor (StreetSense, Intelligence Class 5): A new Android Torpor action allows players to put an android into a hidden sleep for a mild, non-renewable cost. This preserves the unit for later use, particularly useful for units with badges that would otherwise be lost.
- People-Watching Debates: Wealthy citizen debates have been rebalanced based on player feedback.
- Dual Handguns Rebalanced: Now scale twice as strongly as regular handguns. Thanks to Pingcode for suggesting and implementing this.
- StreetSense & Scavenging Site Lens Filters: Resource filters for the StreetSense lens have been split into sub-filters, and the Scavenging Sites lens now includes filters—both based on player requests.
- Unit Scrapping List Order: Now matches the Forces sidebar, ensuring a sensible unit order.
- Expanded Inspect Mode: Holding Ctrl now allows you to inspect buildings in any lens, rather than just in Versatile and Structures.
- Quick Equipment & Filtering Shortcuts: Ctrl-clicking a unit type button in Command Mode now jumps directly to the equipment screen for that unit type. Ctrl-clicking a building type in Build Mode now filters by its internal robotics. Ctrl-clicking a resource in the Ledger, main resource view, or top-left game header now jumps directly to its Input/Output report. If no data is available, the screen will be skipped.
- Ledger & Input/Output Report Improvements: The Ledger now includes salaries, TPN usage, and other non-job-related expenses/incomes that were previously missing. The Input/Output Report now displays all expenses and incomes, including deals, making resource tracking more comprehensive.
- Ignoring Reports Made Clearer: The option to ignore Ledger and TPS reports is now more clearly displayed in their tooltips.
Fixes & Adjustments
- Slum Tower Clearance Fix: Completely clearing all slum towers in the city no longer blocks two specific projects.
- Unit Mouse Collider Adjustments: The mouse collider size for War Raptors and Parkour Bears has been adjusted to not be oversized.
- AOE Attack Fix: AOE attacks hitting your units as secondary targets will no longer cause NPCs to appear in the “attacks planned against your units” list.
- Autosave Purging Update: Autosave purging is now sorted based on date and time instead of in-game time, ensuring proper save management when loading older savegames.
- Microbuilder Mini-Fab Message Fix: The "damaged buildings" repair spiders message now only appears when buildings are actually damaged by enemies, rather than when first constructing a Microbuilder Mini-Fab.
- Exception Fixes: A handful of player-reported exceptions have been fixed.
Full Changelog
A full, comprehensive breakdown of every change from this patch can be found in the Heart of the Machine Wiki, found here.
Guides to Tame the Machine
Even the most brilliant mind needs guidance when faced with a system as vast as this one. To help you navigate, we’ve pinned two essential resources from the Heart of the Machine wiki:
- Aggro, Awareness, and Alarms
- How to Improve Engineering
- Should I Restart If I Skipped to the Final Doom?
New Minds, Start Here
For those just stepping into the Machine’s world, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the basics. The Heart of the Machine Beginner's Guide is your gateway to understanding the systems at play and building your foundation. After all, every complex network starts with a single connection.
We've recently released the Heart of the Machine Hacking Guide as well! Knowledge is power. Guard it well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3422241019
Connect with the Machine
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.
Here is a link to prior recent patches in case you missed them.
https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/2001070/announcements/detail/524210308312468720
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2001070/view/530965072572320673
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/530965072572317985