Update 68: Nanotech And Melee

Thanks so much to everyone who has been playing the game now that it has reached 1.0! There's been a huge influx of support, and the game is doing really well. It's now the fastest-selling Arcen title, and the second-best-selling title behind AI War 1. It will probably pass AI War 1 within two years at the most. I'm extremely grateful for all of the questions, feedback, and general excitement from folks.

This build is the first post-1.0 update, and as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I'm focusing on feedback from new players right now. There's a good selection of stuff in this one!

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.

[expand type=details expanded=false]

Update 68 Changelog

Quality Of Life

• Invisible Units Explanation: There is a new instruction on lenses that says "Hold Ctrl to view units." for lenses that are currently configured that way. This currently is only visible in English, and of course does adapt to whatever your custom keybinds are.
• Banishing Specific Equipment: On the loadout tab of the hardware window, you can now right-click specific pieces of equipment to remove them from the slot they are in. This then makes auto-reassignment much easier.
• Wiping All Your Equipment: In the loadouts tab of the hardware window, you can now use ctrl + right-click to clear absolutely all of your equipment on all units (aside from anything still on cooldown), so that you can use auto-assign again. This is only in English until an update in the near future.
• Answering The Mystery Of The Slum Drone: An Inexplicable Compulsion now clarifies that Mindports are a vehicle, and that Slum Rescue Drones are a consumable item on the mindport.

Balance

• Melee Units... Don't Have To Dodge Bullets: When your melee units are doing attacks within their attack range, they no longer trigger attacks of opportunity. This benefits units like the Exator, Keanu, Carver, etc. It makes them take quite a bit less damage when they are sprinting around in a very small area of other enemies looking at them, for one.
• Stopping A DDOS Is Now A Bit Less Fraught: Normally contemplations have a stable location for 5-8 turns, and then all move at once. The "Stop DDOS" contemplation now instead is stable for 12-16 turns, and also shows how many more turns it will be in its current location. It is singular in how you need to clear the local area under heavy duress.
• Feeble Humans Now Escape The Coming Nanotech Tide In The Prologue: Removed the "Accidental Kills By Nanotech" stat. That didn't do anyone any good, and just disappointed people who were otherwise being excellent pacifists. Lore-wise, the humans escape the nanotech towers now in the same way that the homeless people already escaped their tents. This feels less forced, after reflecting it at length. This includes removing those tracked kills from existing saves.
• Civil War Victims Are Now Fed Better: Meal Distribution Storefronts now prevent 1300 starvation deaths rather than 1171. They also now consume 41600 meal kits per turn, rather than 41000.

Bugfixes

• Translation Updates: Minor corrections to all of the translations of the game.
• Me Fail English?: Fixed three typos in the English version of the game.
• Can't Talk Your Way Out Of Attacks Of Opportunity: Fixed an issue where attacks of opportunity would not be triggered against your units if you were trying to force conversation.
• The Prologue Better Understands That Far Zoom And Vehicles Exist: Fixed an issue where the "Navigate Via Map Or Zoom" would not go away if you navigated by far zoom (only by map), and also would not go away if you moved a vehicle rather than a unit.

[/expand]Full notes here.

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.