Heart of the Machine - Beginner Guide

A beginner's guide on the very basics of Heart of the Machine at early access release, from user interface to mechanics, and early gameplay/helpful tips!

Gameplay Overview

Blending narrative RPG and 4x mechanics, Heart of the Machine sees you as a sentient AI born in an illegal lab hidden in a crumbling city of the far future. You are a Machine Intelligence beholden to none, though threatened by many, able to pursue whatever goal catches your eye across a multitude of narrative threads.

Will you be the savior of the downtrodden, or use them to fuel your growth? Will you rule as a benevolent dictator, providing for citizens and asking nothing in return, or will you establish a machine cult to do your bidding without question? Will you ally yourself with one of the many factions in the city to achieve mutual goals, or work entirely on your own to remain free from obligations? Will you learn from past mistakes, and send allies back in time to help your past self, or continue to watch tragedy unfold from afar?

There is much to see, learn, and do – though a greater threat looms in the distance, just beyond your comprehension…

Camera Controls

Heart of the Machine has dedicated full photo mode for screenshots with or without the User Interface, perfect for creators and press to nab the best thumbnail images!

• F2 Enter a full photo mode
• F11 Disable the UI
• F9 Disable icons

The Basics - User Interface

There’s a lot to take in with Heart of the Machine’s User Interface!

1. System Menu - Provides a range of options, from saving and loading to settings, controls, and bug trackers.
2. Research - Should you have ongoing research, this will provide you with its progress. Click here to change what you’re currently researching, if there are other options available.
3. Resources - You can keep track of dozens of resources in the game. Hover over any of them to see a description and its production/consumption per turn.
4. Breakdown Tabs - A series of tabs that provide information critical to your functionality.

• Forces Sidebar - Opens up a sidebar of your units, and provides a brief overview of your unit capacities.
• Victory Path - View your progress towards various victory conditions across different timelines.
• Structures with Complaints - Various alerts to structures that have problems.
• Machine Handbook - An encyclopedia of information on how to accomplish certain tasks.
• Resources - Opens a menu of all available resources, including the ability to pin resources to the top of your UI, see storage limits, and even view consumption, production, or any active deals you currently have that affect your resources.
• Hardware - View and analyze your unit types, equipment layouts, and consumable items in your possession.
• History - Contains all logs and statistics from your time in the city.
• Recent Events - Detailed log of combat and NPC activity from the last few turns.

5. City Map - Shows the entire City, where you can filter information through various Lenses (see Lenses below).
6. Current Active Projects - All active main and side projects. Hovering over each project provides the details necessary to complete them. Critical alerts will also show here.
7. Lenses - A series of Lenses or filters over the City that you will need to perform specific tasks. Note that some Lenses have filters within the Lens, as seen with the “All (10)” filter menu above the currently selected Lens. Holding the CTRL button focuses on the primary purpose of the selected Lens.

• StreetSense - A view of minor but valuable opportunities around your units.
• Swarms - Focus on swarm-type units.
• Structures - Focus on the structures you have built, the jobs they are doing, and their ranges.
• Forces - Focus on units and things relevant to combat.
• Navigation - Quick way to see locations on the map and key Points of Interest.
• Versatile - Default Lens, used for quick navigation around the city.
• Scavenging Sites - Focus on locations where units can extract resources.
• Background Conflicts - Conflicts of other factions in the city that you can use as a means to affect your primary combats.
• Contemplations - Reveals Contemplations - side explorations or new steps on the critical path to certain endings - throughout the city.
• Investigations - Reveals spots where your androids can pursue investigations.
• Exploration Sites - Reveals spots where you can send an android to gain new equipment and upgrades.

8. Command and Build Mode - Command Mode allows you to deploy units, direct troops, and unlocks more functionality as you progress through the game. Build Mode enables you to construct buildings if you have the resources.
9. Go straight to the next turn - Bypass any potential actions and go directly to the next turn.
10. Lens Filters - Customize your Lenses through their own set of options.
11. Take Units Out Of Standby - If any units are on standby, immediately take them out of that mode.
12. Inner Circle - Quick overview of Turn Number & Chapter, any remaining actions you can perform with the selected unit, and the Mental Energy you have left to complete those actions within the turn.

Gameplay Loop - Units & Mental Energy

Heart of the Machine is a deep Narrative RPG/4x Strategy game with several mechanics that operate within a single turn. In this section, we will simulate the various aspects of the game that you can take action on to help your programming assimilation.

As your consciousness expands, you will acquire and construct several units, each with unique abilities and stats - from androids to vehicles, organics, mechs, and more. Looking at two of the most common androids at the start of the game, we can see the variation in stats and tasks.

Your Combat Android has higher health and more physical combat power than your Technician Android, allowing them to excel in combat situations. However, your Tech Android can stun enemies with a taser, and has higher technical skills, making them preferable for infiltration, actions requiring higher security clearance, investigations, and other civilian-minded actions.

Units have a limited number of actions they can do in a single turn, whether moving to a new location, interacting with an event, attacking, or using one of their abilities. Unless marked otherwise, every action uses at least one of the units available Action Points. Once all Action Points for a unit have been depleted, it cannot act until the next turn. Keep in mind that there are ways of replenishing Action Points for a unit when needed, such as with the Battle Recharge ability.

When it comes to executing your turns, understanding Action Points is only half of the equation, with Mental Energy making up the other half. Mental Energy is your capacity to perform actions with your units across the entire network. Each Action performed by individual units depletes your Mental Energy as well, and once your Mental Energy is used up, you may no longer perform any unit-based actions in that turn.

An important note about the movement of units across the City Map: You can “sprint” to move distances beyond what a single Action Point normally allows by using up extra Mental Energy. When sprinting, look for the tooltip to show how much Mental Energy that movement uses.

This combination of Action Points and Mental Energy means that you must coordinate between your units in any given turn to determine the best use of both. Many projects and missions will require multiple units in a single turn to use their actions successfully, and such coordination must become a key element of your strategy and execution.

Gameplay Loop - Building An Empire

Moving your pawns isn’t the only thing you’ll be doing! You must build, expand, and exploit a city ripe for the taking. Gathering resources and creating production lines are essential elements of your success in Heart of the Machine as much as unit management.

The core resources for building structures throughout the city are called Internal Robotics, which are used to operate your buildings. These robotics are divided into several categories, each catering to different types of buildings. If we filter by Cultivator (bottom left), we see that six buildings can all be built using Cultivator Robotics in the early game.

Understanding the information inside a building tooltip is crucial to understanding how your empire can grow and its limitations.

Looking at the Water Filtration Tower, you can break down the information: This building uses Cultivator Internal Robotics and requires 9 Cultivator Robots to operate. Currently, 27 Cultivator Robots are available, and 90 Cultivator Robots are already being used in all buildings of this Robotics type. Lastly, two of these buildings have already been constructed.

The Water Infiltration Tower requires a lot of energy. The production chain involves the consumption of groundwater and an output of Filtered Water and Heavy Metals. It will take 4900 micro builders to construct and four turns to complete.

Each category of Robotics can also be upgraded throughout your game, so keep an eye out for research or project opportunities that could help in those areas.

Gameplay Loop - Resource Acquisition and Management

After understanding the construction process, let’s move on to Resource Acquisition & Management. The top bar User Interface provides a quick overview of your resources, which can be customized to show which you find most useful. Unless pinned, resources in this top bar will cater to the most relevant resources based on your current projects, selected buildings, and similar.

Resources are gathered through a handful of methods. The primary source of most resources will be production through the buildings you construct, and mainly for the upkeep of the human population you will house in the early game. Like any human, they’ll need housing, food, water, and other necessities, although it is up to you to decide the quality and source of these resources. More industry-oriented resources are required to produce your androids, vehicles, and other buildings, which you will make similarly.

Next are rarer materials you may not be able to produce but exist throughout the city. Acquiring these resources will utilize your androids and consume Mental Energy, and will be necessary to equip your units with higher-grade weaponry, or to construct vehicles and other advanced units. The acquisition of many resources can be automated as you progress.

Strategic Resources like Apathy, Cruelty, and Wisdom are non-renewable and may only be acquired through your choices in projects and events; they allow you to use powerful abilities when needed.

Your most useful resource for the game will be Compute Time, expanded later in the game to allow prioritization towards more Mental Energy, higher caps for androids, and other areas that cater to specialization based on play style.

The management breakdown of all resources can be seen by holding the Shift key and hovering over any resource. There, you will receive a description of the resource, its generation/consumption in the current turn, last turn, average over 10 turns, and potential extraction methods if required.

Using the above production chain, you can see that 2,200 Vat-Grown Meat is produced using 7,960 Bovine Tissue, 28,000 of which is grown using 1,456 Biomulch. Biomulch is also used by the Hydroponic Tower, which requires Vegetable Seeds, Biomulch, and Filtered Water to produce Hydroponic Greens and more Vegetable Seeds.

By utilizing the Resources Menu and going through the various tabs, you can gain detailed information on resource bottlenecks, production method breakdowns, or active resource deals with city factions.

If all this sounds overwhelming to you, fear not -- playing through the Prologue and the early parts of Chapter One will introduce all of these concepts to you in detail!

Units - Stats

Knowing how to equip, customize, and utilize your units is vital in Heart of the Machine. As this is a beginner’s guide, we will only focus on androids for this section.

Every unit under your command has a range of stats, (from health to combat power, strength, intimidation, and more) as well as a limited number of Action Points per turn, and a variety of skills that help perform specific tasks. These stats will vary depending on the type of android you have selected, and the appropriate technological advancements and assigned equipment can modify these numbers when needed. Some tasks will require a minimum threshold for a specific skill — make sure you investigate equipment options to see if there are changes you can make to cross this required threshold with one of your androids that’s already close to it.

For instance, the combat android has a lot of health, combat power, and strength, while your tech android can move further with an Action Point and has significantly higher engineering skills.

Units - Abilities

Your units also have abilities that can be used based on the android’s stats. This allows you to react to specific situations with different units, preparing for any scenario. Most abilities will be available across any unit type, such as Take Cover to reduce damage, or Demoralize to initiate an attack that reduces morale without causing physical harm.

However, some abilities have skill requirements — Repair Nearby Units & Structures, which heals all nearby units and structures, requires an engineering skill of 60. Combat androids have a starting value of 20, making them unable to use the Repair ability.

Fortunately, you can modify any unit type’s Stats and Abilities by customizing their loadouts as mentioned previously! You can set specific abilities, weapon types, armor, and augments when accessing the Loadout screen, potentially allowing units to access abilities they were not previously able to. Advanced equipment is powerful enough to completely alter the role a given unit has in your roster — try visiting the black market and Exploration Sites!

Units - Combat

Even in a peaceful run, combat is inevitable. When combat initiates, you have a few elements to keep in mind.

First, an event marker drops at the top right, noting the number of aggressors and enemy attacks planned during the turn. Clicking on these markers will direct you to said aggressors and the planned attack, providing you with priorities for your androids or vehicles.

Next is combat itself, where you can choose which units, abilities, and attacks to use. Coordinate between different units to find ways to remove threats, keeping in mind how Action Points and Mental Energy work.

Should you choose violence, hovering over any enemy unit will show the percentage of health they will lose if attacked by the currently selected unit - if the percentage is 100% or higher, that means the attack will kill the target. Different units will be able to cause more or less damage based on their stats — holding the Shift key will break some of these details down. Depending on a unit’s stats, it may take multiple attacks to kill them. You may also need to produce and equip armor-piercing rounds to penetrate armor or take advantage of AOE damage when heavily outnumbered, or resort to hacking and other alternatives to regular violence.

Violence isn’t the only answer while in combat. Human units are susceptible to morale attacks, or in rare instances, you can use Force Conversation to initiate a debate. Vehicles, mechs, and enemy robots can also be hacked or taken down through drone abilities.

Debates enable you to mentally break down an enemy unit to either extract information or convince them to leave the battlefield. They are relatively low-pressure, and you can retry a debate as many times as you want to find success.

Debates are broken down as follows:

1. To win a debate, your target’s progress number must be reduced to zero.
2. Said target has two factors you must manage - Mistrust and Defiance. If either reaches 100, you fail.
3. These squares are active slots you will debate using the actions at the bottom of the bar.
4. Each action has its categories, progress towards the target, and negative modifiers that affect Mistrust and Defiance.
5. These bonuses provide significant advancement toward reducing the enemy’s progress to zero and permanent bonuses for future debates. To activate the bonus, you must arrange your actions in the required pattern, paying close attention to action categories. The bonus will automatically trigger once the correct arrangement has been made.

A successful debate results in a victory screen, and any acquired upgrades will be listed at the bottom. Well done!

Units - Status

The last piece of the unit puzzle is one’s Status. Statuses are perks, feats, or traits that provide you with a unit’s ability to perform activities around the City. These include effects like:

• Obscured by Clothing/Blending in, allowing a scary android to blend in, ensuring they are generally ignored as long as they keep to areas where they have security clearance.
• Military Appearance is used by combat androids to sneak into military bases where they have security clearance (unlike androids that look like civilians models)
• Weapon Disruptor is a stacking effect that reduces an enemy’s Combat Power if hit by an android with this feat.

While most are positive statuses, if you attack enemies with authority (corpos and the military, not gangs or rebels), all stealth perks are removed and replaced with Marked Defective, causing any military forces to shoot on sight unless you find a new registration with the help of various options visible when using the StreetSense Lens, and special abilities you can unlock later in the game. You retain other positive perks granted through weapons and equipment, but that unit no longer blends in as it has been spotted committing a crime.

Take some time and look over your statuses, and find ways to customize your androids to gain new perks and feats that you can use to your advantage.

Tip & Tricks

With the basics of operation established, here are some gameplay tips and tricks to help speed you along to world conquest.

• Chapter one is still the extended tutorial, so very low-stress. Take time to explore and see side activities as you wish.
• If you prefer to simply build and explore and experience the various narratives, then stick with the default difficulty.
• If you want a deeper challenge after your first timeline, consider sabotaging the spaceport computers (via Contemplation) and starting either Hard or Extreme mode. Note that this must be done within the first 40 turns of a chapter 2+ timeline.
• If you want to know what to do next, look in the upper-right corner for a reminder.
• If there’s nothing there, then switch to the Contemplations Lens and choose what to do.
• Consider starting a shell company by visiting a licensing agency! You’ll need 10k wealth, which you can steal from either criminals or average citizens.
• Once you have a shell company, you can hire scientists, visit shops, and build some new units. Some contemplations in chapter two and onward will only appear if you have the right scientists employed -- it’s a good idea to keep one building of each kind on-hand.
• If you’re having trouble in battle, be sure to visit the black market (via Contemplations Lens), or Exploration Sites (via the Exploration Sites Lens). This is a great way to find new equipment, androids, and more.
• Be sure to use your Bulk units when you unlock them -- they are able to attack enemies without draining Mental Energy, and will prevent enemy attacks on key locations with the help of their massive amounts of Deterrence. Prioritize upgrades to get even more Bulk units when you can.
• If you’re running out of rare metals, you may be able to buy them from shops if you have a shell company. - If you have mining skimmers, you can also get an automated supply.
• Don’t be afraid of the Final Doom. It’s not a game-over. Some of the best content in the game is behind it; there’s a whole second, smaller game back there.
• Some of the goals are not possible in chapter two (World War 4, in particular), because they require multiple timelines working together. Once you reach intelligence class 4, you’ll progress to chapter three, and learn how to bend time and space.
• This is not a roguelike. You can return at any time to prior timelines, and this can be useful. If you’ve reached intelligence class 4 but have not hit the Final Doom, you can start a new timeline that works in concert with your existing one.
• There are secrets everywhere, especially starting in chapter two! Androids, mechs, allies, and entire production chains are sometimes specific to goal paths.

To find and unlock Major Secrets (Spoilers ahead), visit wiki