Heart of the Machine Hacking Guide

A detailed overview on the hacking mini-game within Heart of the Machine.

How To Start a Hack & Why Do The Mini-Game

Hacking in Heart of the Machine is a whole game inside the main game and can be challenging to understand. This guide explains exactly why you should hack and how it works so you can take over mechs, hack people’s bionic implants, shut down weapons systems, and unleash devastation across the city.

Before we begin, it’s good to note that failing a hack is not the end of the road in within the turn. While Hacking costs 1 Action Point and 3 Mental Energy, you can attempt Hacking multiple times within a turn as long as you have the energy to do so.

First, you’ll need a hacker unit. In the early game, this will be your Raven Android, or the Harbinger and Mindrunner later on.


We’ll use our Hack Unit ability on our target, bringing up this menu of multiple options.


We could use some of our Strategic Resources, like Wisdom and Creativity, to gain an immediate advantage by reducing its armor or damage dealt. We could also spend Determination to fully hack the mech automatically.

Note that you will have to spend the same amount of Determination in order to succeed within the mini-game, so why hack using the mini-game in the first place?

Short answer - Bonuses.
Long answer:

1. If you hack a mech pilot cradle, you will always get inspiration for 1 Android Optimization and 1 Item Development. These are very valuable!
   
2. If you do any of the smaller hacks to bionic humans or mechs in general, there is a chance of inspiration with:
   
   • 15% chance of getting Small Arms Research
     
   • 15% of getting Structural Improvement
     
   • 15% of getting Item Development
     
   • 15% of getting Vehicular Development
     
   • 15% of getting Martial Expansion
     
   • 15% of getting Procurement Efficiency
     
   • 10% of getting Android Optimization.
3. The cost to quick-hacking Hardware Interface Nodes will rise if your hacking skill is lower than the target's hacking resistance. Using a Full Hack is always the original cost, but difficulty will increase in the mini-game.

If this is your first time hacking, the tutorial at the top right emphasizes hovering over elements throughout the hacking interface to understand the process that we will break down here.


For example, we will hijack this mech pilot’s brain through the neural interface so we can permanently use the mech for ourselves. To do so, we need to destroy all hostile Security Daemons to access the operator's node (Leaf Node) and then destroy the operator node (Mech Pilot Cradle) itself. We could also disable any Hardware Interface Nodes using Strategic Resources, the Full Hack version of when we first tried hacking the unit on the map.

In this advanced hack, we have a few elements to go over:

1. Turn-based, grid-based combat - The board features a grid of number values that will determind where you can or cannot move - as we’ll see below - with actions in a turn-based format.
   
2. Dead Cells - Darkened cells - You cannot move to, or through, these cells. Your only option is to jump over them.
   
3. Security Daemons - security measures in place to seek you and destroy you. You’ll need to eliminate them first. Hovering over each will give you specific details, such as how many squares they can move in a turn and the range of their attacks. All Security Daemons move at the same time.
   
4. Shard of Consciousness - Noted by the green border, this is a piece of you inserted into the machine to hack it. It can take various actions, which will be detailed below. You can split your consciousness to have multiple shards, but you can only move or attack with one shard per turn.
   
5. Hardware Interface Nodes - Various parts of the mech or enemy hacker that you can destroy to hamper in different ways (armor, damage dealt, etc).
   
6. Actions - various node shifts and abilities you can use to accomplish your goals.
   
7. Strategic Resources - Relevant resources required to attack Hardware Interface Nodes.

Security Daemons - A Bestiary

Security Daemons are an essential mechanic of the mini-game to understand, as they are the key thing that stands between you and a successful hack.

The Daemons move every time you move a shard, albeit in much different ways, as explained when you hover over any Daemon.

• Move Range - How many tiles a Daemon can move in a single turn.
  
• Move Frequency - How often a Daemon can move. Note that the "2" means they only move every two turns.

If a Daemon moves onto your shard, you lose that shard, and if that's your only shard, you lose the current hacking attempt. Therefore, having multiple shards will be important to winning, as we'll see later in this guide.


There are four types of Security Daemons:

1. Gnath - These are as simple as they come. They move one space per turn, and they move every turn.
   
2. Code Priest - Incredibly dangerous, but intermittently so. It can move up to 3 tiles at once, including in elbow shapes, thus the large range of red tiles. The good news is, it only moves every other turn, is visibly dimmed when it cannot move, and does not show any threat lines when it's not going to act.
   The worst part about this is that it will spawn a new daemon of some kind if it eats one of your shards. You can wololo enemies, but code priests can wololo your shards.
   
3. Recursive Loop - These move a distance of 2 and they move every turn. The problem is, every time they eat a shard, they create a copy of themselves.
   
4. Triswarm - These move a range of 3, every turn, making them the fastest Daemons. The bad news is that when you corrupt one of them, they split into 3 Triswarm Fragments. These triswarm fragments move at speed 2, every turn. They have no special abilities, but there are a lot of them right in one area, making them dangerous.

Run Ability

Your most basic action is the Run ability, allowing you to move horizontally or vertically to a new cell. With this move, you will absorb half of the destination cell’s value (rounded down), with the other half (rounded up) remaining in the cell you came from. You can see this with the value on each side of the tooltip.


The only limitation is that you cannot pass through dead cells, occupied cells (cells with a Security Daemon or other items), or ones with a higher value than the cell you are leaving.

As pictured above, moving to the 31 cell would cause our shard to gain 15 value for a total of 88, while the cell we left would be at 16.

When the result of the move brings your destination to a value higher than 99, you’ll undergo “Splitting.” The shard takes the total value of both cells, splits it evenly, and creates a shard of that value in both places. This move will be noted by a blue border around the destination cell and a “Split” text with the value both cells would have after the split.

Splitting is necessary since you must always have one shard alive, as seen below with Corrupting Shards.


You can move these individual shards independently and have as many shards as you’d like, but you can only take one action per turn across all of them.

Jump Ability

You can also jump to a new cell, which can help you get out of tight spaces or leap over dead cells. When Jumping, you will only take on the value of the cell you move to. The limitations are only slightly different; you cannot pass occupied cells or land on a cell with a higher value than the cell you are leaving. However, you CAN jump OVER cells of a higher value.

Since you can only jump to cells of a lower value, Jumping can be more risky, and it’s possible to easily trap a shard to where it can no longer move.

Firewall Ability

The Firewall ability can only be used when you have two or more split shards on the same line, burning the line between them. Note that the Firewall ability does not consume the shards but DOES cost you Mental Energy, unlike regular attacks, Moving, or Jumping, so use it sparingly to destroy daemons or the Hardware Interface caught between your shards.

Corrupting Shards

Why is splitting essential? As security daemons move to destroy your shard, they can end up next to one, allowing you to click on said shard and corrupt it, destroying the shard and the cells around it, including a daemon.

This is your “Attack” action, and this same method can also be used to move up to a Hardware Interface and destroy it (provided you have the Strategic Resource required to do so, as indicated by the tooltip when hovering over your target)

Hacking Operation Success!

In our example, you can see that once you’ve destroyed the mech pilot node, the mech is yours to use! And we have the "Reverse Engineered Machinist Mech" technology, as seen in the lower right corner! Now we can make more of them.

Consequences of Hacking

Most hacking actions are considered invisible, so you can do things to enemies without them realizing where you are or who is doing it, no matter if quick-hacking or Full Hacking.

However, if you fail a hack and your shard is caught, the hacker will be marked defective, blowing its cover and making it vulnerable to attack. If that hacker happens to be in a vehicle, the same fate awaits, even if cloaked.

This is also the case for corrupting a mech's pilot cradle, whether by quick-hacking or Full Hacking - the unit will blow its cover, be marked defective, and subject to attack.

Keep this in mind before attacking, and be prepared to lose a unit if your goal is to fully hack a mech or bionic person.

Tips & Tricks

There are a few handy tips & tricks that might help you now and in the future with hacking.

• When you hack a mech for the first time in a timeline, you immediately get the schematics for that mech type. Whether you do that via full hacking or quick-hacking, it does not matter.
  
• The Strategic Resource cost of auto-hacking Hardware Interface Nodes increases if the mech's hack resistance is higher than your hacker's skill.
  
• Using a Full Hack, corrupting Hardware Interface Nodes on the board becomes significantly more cost-effective.
  
• Try to complete any hacking at the start of your turn on the map, as some actions require Mental Energy.
  
• Bionic Human Hackers are more challenging to corrupt by default. Make sure your hacking game is on point before trying a Full Hack.
  
• Hacking a Hardware Interface Node will end the current hack immediately, but you can still go right back in to hack another piece of hardware if you like.
  
• If your skill is above a certain level, you start with multiple shards.
  
• The value of your starting shard is also based on your hacker's skill.

I hope this has helped you understand how hacking works in Heart of the Machine. And remember - the people you’re hacking are basically dead inside anyways, so no moral grounds are breached in doing so ;)

[The Ghost With The Most (Kira)]

This is a good basic guide for hacking.
Try to learn the enemies, it pays of in dividends later down the line. Most of the Daemon's, Recursive Loop in particular, hone on in on the player. The way you beat those is by counting their moves and splitting to leave a chunk behind, so it moves up and you can take advantage.

[Mazian]

This guide is now mostly outdated as many new daemons have been added and the rewards for hacking have been drastically changed.

[Mazian]

Update 12 changed hacking in a number of ways. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2001070/view/521959859806013752?l=english

Update 13 is forecasted to make still more changes (forecasted for next week, I think)

[Antony (Hooded Horse)]

An update indeed changed the costs of Hacking, which has not been updated in this guide. Thank you Elegant Caveman!

[CG]

is there any way to get more computational unlocks as they are the main limiter?

[Elegant Caveman]

I don't know if something changed in an update since this was written, but hacking isn't free (anymore?).

Each hack costs 1 AP and 3 Mental Energy, so no, you can't hack a unit as often as you want in a single turn.

[LawfulPoser]

holy crap i didnt know you you could get an inspiration thru hacking, guess its time to farm. thank you!