[p]This build includes a number of additions based on player feedback. There are two big areas: daring and "future sight."

Daring is something that you can spend in the metagame, and the game is now more generous with that in a way that benefits everyone, but which benefits people playing Normal difficulty the most.

As far as the Future Sight stuff goes… on balance, it's not giving you a whole lot more information (the first time you play), to avoid spoilers. However, the information it was already giving you is a lot harder to miss. And if you're on a timeline beyond the first, it now gives you a LOT more information, to help with navigating routes without needing to either remember everything or consult an external wiki.

I'm still working on Cybercratic Ambitions, so that's still not ready even on the beta branch. That will be on the beta next week sometime, and Peace After Brutality will likely move from beta to the main branch next week as well. Those two are huge!

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.[/p][p]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.[/p][p]Thanks for reading and for playing.
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Update 59 Changelog

Clarity

• 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.

Goal Pathing Visibility

• 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.

Daring Balance

• 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.

Bugfixes

• 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.

[p]Full notes here.

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Connect with the Machine

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[p]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.[/p]