HotM:Chapter Two Initial Set

Reporting Bugs

• Any bugs or requests should go to our mantis bugtracker
  • If you need to submit log files, those can generally be found under your PlayerData/Logs folder in the folder your game is installed in. The most relevant one is called HeartoftheMachineLog.txt. You can send us the whole thing, or just strip out relevant parts.
  • In rare cases, mainly if your entire game crashes (that almost never happens), we will need your unity player log. That gets overwritten the next time you run the game after a crash, unlike the other log. These can be found here:
    • Windows: C:\Users\username\AppData\LocalLow\Arcen Games, LLC\Heart of the Machine\Player.log
    • macOS: ~/Library/Logs/Arcen Games, LLC/Heart of the Machine/Player.log
    • Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/Arcen Games, LLC/Heart of the Machine/Player.log

0.593.1

(Not Yet Released)

• The release notes link in the game has been updated to point to this new page.

• Have started adding some more goal states, and removed two goal states, as I'm coming to realize I want something more flexible that does not mean "this timeline has reached a full tier 1 goal state" in the sense I previously meant it. There's a lot more interesting opportunities to mix and match for players when I'm not being that monolithic.

• When savegames are loaded, they now specify what the version of the save was in the log where it says how long it took to load. This is not really useful for anyone but myself and perhaps some testers, to see if a loaded save is really from the version that a bug reporter says it is.

• Chapter Two has been renamed to Strategy, and Chapter Three is now called Freedom. Previously, chapter two was called Freedom, but that was out of date for a while now.

• The android archetypes handbook entry now mentions by name the different types of android that exist.

• After you are warned about the dooms in chapter two, you now have a project which is to reach intelligence class 4. This will remain for probably most of the second chapter, unless players make it a priority.
  • Once escaping the first timeline, that is the catalyst to move to chapter three (which is the main time loop of the game, and includes all of the content from chapter two), and in chapter three and onwards it does not have this project since you are already at that level.

QoL

• Both StreetSense and Contemplations now have a dropdown above them on the radial menu, where you can select subsets of them by purpose.
  • These were getting crowded even in chapter one, and it is only going to get drastically worse as chapter two and onward grows. So this allows players to quickly filter to the sorts of things they are interested in out of what is available at the moment.
  • As an aside, this in particular makes it easier to see how to start a shell company, with that option then disappearing after you have started one.

• Timeline goals are now visible for the first time, in a new tab in the history window. Wow that window has a lot of tabs now.
  • You can now see what the available timeline goals are, in broad terms, and also filter by collections that are provided for it. In their tooltips, it also shows what resources you will get for the metagame without explaining those at all, and if there are multiple tiers of accomplishing that timeline goal.

• There is also a new contemplations tab in the history window, which shows you the contemplations in a list format. This allows you to also filter them, to see things like what things are related to the critical path of goals.
  • Here again, the goal was to make sure that players are able to plan properly when they are thrown in and there are a ton of options, most notably by filtering down the options at least somewhat.

Doom Events

• The "starting conflicts" choice when starting a new timeline (in the end of time) has been shifted to "doom type" instead, and now folds in a lot more things than just the conflicts at the start.
  • This is part of a much larger new feature in general, which will finally give some time pressure in chapter two, but in a bit of a twist than games that bother me about how they handle it.

• There is a new Dooms tab in the history window, which shows the list of dooms that are going to happen for this current timeline, and on what turn they will happen.
  • If the doom clock has not yet started, then it simply notes that this will happen in the future.
  • In general, you can see some information about dooms early (that they exist at all) by hovering that tab in the history window, as early as in the prologue. However, dooms themselves will not show up until chapter two.
  • Once you can see them, it shows you what turn they will happen on, exactly, and how many turns you have remaining before they do However, if you've never experienced a given doom before in any timeline, then it just shows "unknown doom" until it happens.

• I should note that for the very first doom, you only get 99 turns, and for all the others you get 100 turns. This makes for round numbers when you are starting a fresh timeline on turn 1, where dooms hit on turns 100, 200, etc.
  • This doesn't apply when you are entering from chapter one on your first timeline, but every other timeline it will apply.

• For the initial "Vorsiber's Wrath" doom type, the ten doom events have been defined and described.

• When you are in chapter two, and you have a network tower, it now starts the doom counter and gives you a message about what dooms are.
  • It also gives you two new handbook entries in a new Timelines section, and it marks both as read immediately since they are duplicate information from the message that pops up and its extension for if you have more questions.

• In chapter three and onward, it starts the dooms as soon as you build the network tower, but it doesn't have anything new to say about them that you don't already know.
  • Note to QLOC: you'll be able to test chapter 3 things within a week, so please keep a note of these things to test them later, since you can't test them yet.

• When doom events happen, they now create a popup that is a must-look-at message on the task stack. You can either right-click to dismiss those, or left-click to see the full list of dooms.
  • The general idea here is to make sure that these are not missed.
  • Note to QLOC: if one of these is visible, it should save into the savegame and then load back out properly.

• The first doom event (in the Vorsiber's Wrath set) happens 99 turns after you start the doom countdowns. It is called "Deaths In The Black Market," and both the Tradesman and Assistant are killed by Vorsiber forces.
  • If you had not already traded with them for their weapons and armor, then you can't get those for the rest of this timeline.
  • If you had already traded with them, then you'll see a notice of their deaths, but not much else changes. They don't have ongoing storylines, unlike the Merchandiser, who lives through this.
  • This first doom event is very tame, although it does also put a time limit on you deciding if you want those weapons and armor or not.

• There is a new category of "desperate homeless," which are people who are victims of very rapid displacement, especially after you have reduced the homeless tents around the city.
  • They act mostly like abandoned citizens or displaced citizens, and will quickly die of exposure if you have no housing or refugee housing for them to move into.

• The second doom event is a Famine, which causes a bunch of desperate homeless to spawn until the next doom event happens (so, it's 100 turns of between 2 and 380 new desperate homeless per turn. That means you have anywhere between 200 and 38000 people to either ignore or take in.
  • This actually can be quit a nice boost if you're looking for more people to put into your VR Seats, and have the space for it.
  • There will later be other famine-related events that pop up in a time-based fashion, but I'm not in a hurry to make that happen, as it's a nice-to-have for now.

• The third doom event is Prisoner Drive, where a bunch of mechs from the two prison companies show up in four different locations around the map, in poor and decrepit parts of town.
  • They are gathering from the lower classes, but they also will live-fire on you if you happen to be near them, or move near them.
  • These should always seed far enough from your machine areas that you aren't constantly embattled for 100 turns with them, but that will take some testing to see if bad cases can be created.

• The fourth doom event is Religious Schism, which causes the death of your nurturist exalter friend, if you met her, and also the dissolution of her entire sect of Nurturism.
  • If you hadn't already done the pollinators event, you can't start it after this point.

• The fifth through tenth doom events are defined, but don't yet have their related logic in place, so please don't try to test those yet. The messages will pop up about them, but nothing will actually happen.

Zodiac Path

• There are some goals related to this, and a contemplation that you have no way to complete yet. There's going to be some side-questing required before you can even start these paths.

Housing Path

• Immediately in chapter 2, there is a new contemplation called "Shelter Coordinators Are Slow" on your housing.
  • If you embark on it, and spend 20 compassion, then it will start the project "Solve Homelessness" and unlock the new "Housing Agency" job as well as giving you 1 upgrade of the Steward internal robotics.
  • The player is likely to have to convert many of their smaller housing tower into Residential MegaStructures, but they should be able to have three RMs even if they never took any Steward upgrades before now. That should, in turn, be sufficient to house all of the homeless in the entire city.
  • The entire project should take only a few turns after the construction is completed on the RMs and the housing agencies, if they build two of the agencies.

• While you are in the middle of solving homelessness, NOAI rebels and Will of the People gang members are going to angrily be attacking those buildings, and then spilling into your other buildings if you're not careful.
• Added a new rebel unit, and a couple of new stances for rebels and gangs, and some other features to make them function as desired.

• The first two debates of chapter two are now in place. With the housing, you can talk to the rebels and gang members who are attacking you. You can win debates with both, but only the gang members will leave if you do. The rebels are too fanatical to leave that way.
  • Added some more under the hood features to allow for just some units to leave after things like this.

Balance

• Daily Necessity storage caps are now 10x higher from each storage bunker, as the cap was too easily hit.

• Residential MegaStructures can now hold 2x the population they previously did, and 1.5x the amount of VR Day-Use Seats.

• The requirement for reaching intelligence class 4 has been tripled, and the other intelligence classes above it have also been increased substantially.

• Took away the cap on the six personality-based resources.
  • The goal of the cap was to prevent players from hoarding them and never using them, but this created another problem where if they had more than a certain amount, the game would have to warn them, and if they didn't do things in the right order, they could wind up losing some to hitting cap. I just don't like that flow at all, it doesn't feel right. I've decided that if they want to hoard it, let them.

• Corrected the balance on the Computing Host upgrade; it was way too small per upgrade.

Cheat Adjustments

• Added a new cheat that enables a mode that allows you to delete any unit you select.
  • Useful for when I need to test certain combat situations over and and over again, but not for balance reasons. I need all the speed I can get.

• Sandbox mode was a misleading name, and has been renamed to "Cheat Mode."
  • It is also now per-timeline, versus infecting an entire profile forever once turned on a single time. That's a lot more fair.

• The "Go To Chapter" cheat has been removed, as that did not really function in a useful way in general at this point.

• The "End of Time Resource Grant" cheat has also been removed.
  • The other cheats relating to the end of time remain, as they can help players get un-stuck if they manage to get stuck somehow.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where you were getting refunded for mental energy you didn't actually spend when scrapping structures or jobs.
  • Thanks to Fluffiest for reporting.

• Contemplations now show what their requirements are in the lower left description of them when you hover them, rather than first making you select a unit and then hover them to find out if you pass or fail.

• I've put in extra protections against some random "wealth goes to excess for one turn, or even a few turns" bugs that I'm not sure how to trigger, but which were definitely on the prior build, just very rare.
  • Thanks to Lukas for reporting.

• Fixed the bug with older savegames not properly giving players the personality-based strategic resources. It was related to the caps I've now removed.
  • Thanks to mblazewicz for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where npc units set to spawn around a specific kind of building were not actually doing that logic appropriately.
  • Thanks to mblazewicz for reporting.

Prior Release Notes

Moving To Chapter Two