This is a much less important hotfix than the one yesterday, but it has some really nice improvements in there. Thank you to everyone for the ongoing reports and savegames!
0.655.2 Hotfix 10
Exploration Site Tease Removal: Moved the "Chatting With PMC Guards" exploration site to no longer be included with the demo content, since it's impossible to complete in the context of the demo. I didn't mean to leave a dangling temptation of this sort in there!
Total Time Played: When hovering the button for the end of time, it now shows the total time since your first awakening. This is, in other words, your total time played across all timelines, not counting any save-scumming.
Accidental Grey Goo: Fixed a bug in the prior build that was causing the manifesto route to always convert into the grey goo route
NPCs Despawning On Load: Fixed a number of issues where various NPC managers were despawning their NPCs when you load into a savegame. This was most notably with your worker androids despawning when loading a save.
NPC Despawn Resource Rules: If you have NPC units under your control that are tied to a resource, and they despawn in such a way that would increase that resource over cap, that will no longer send it over cap. This applies to things like war raptors, but most of all to the worker androids.
Timeline Paradox Fix: Fixed a timeline/savegame paradox that could happen in fairly rare circumstances involving save-scumming. Trying to explain this one is challenging, as the full explanation is over 1500 words on the full release notes. This only applies once you're into chapter 3, but basically there were some gaps in the savegame format that I designed and how well those work with time travel that crosses timelines. The short answer is that these issues are now solved, basically by having the needed data in a couple of spots so that I can hot-merge savegames with profile progress if that needs to happen.
Tester Convenience Addition: Building on top of all the profile-based additions in this new build for the game, if you download someone else's savegame and put it into a folder on your computer (say, something like "testers" or whatever), then you should now be able to safely open their savegames without it logging their achievements to your storefront of choice (Steam, GOG, or Epic). This was something requested by testers who also want to work on their own achievements without accidentally getting those of other players.Full notes here.
“Does the machine speak for us, or do we now speak for the machine?”
— William Gibson, Neuromancer
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.
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/524216645064853158
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2001070/view/502822010104053992
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/524212840420081803
