First of all, let me say I really liked this game up untill the level where the epidemics start. The epidemics themselves are a pain (and sometimes, you're seemingly not able to vaccinate infected people for some reason), but the thing that makes it nigh impossible for me to finish this level are the randomly exploding machines.

Every room with machines has a fire extinquisher or two (not sure if they even help) and I send down a mechanic when their strength bars drops a bit. Then out of a sudden, some random machine will explode for no apparant reason. An alarm goes off and before I'm able to do something I see a machine going up in smoke.

To make matters worse, I haven't found a way to replace these machines as their destruction seems to render the whole room unusable. I can't place a handyman there, I can't sell the room, I can't do anything with it anymore.

So why are these machines exploding when their strength is high and why can't I replace them or do anything with the room for that matter?

When the strength levels go low, represented by a #, you should replace the machine. I think you are getting confused with the maintenance bar and strength. You can find the strength at the bottom right of the screen when you select the machine.

Yes, I eventually figured this out myself. The thing that I still find a bit odd about it is the amount of strength a machine will start with. While some have as much as 14, others only start with 7 or 8 and it doesn't seem to be related to it's price or size. I'm not sure whether the machines are getting unstable at a fixed level (say 2 or 3) or at a percentage of their total starting strength, but I tend to replace all machines when they are around strength 5 and that seems to prevent any from exploding.

It's been smooth sailing now and I've been blazing through the levels. Already on the last one I believe. :)

It´s really annoying, as you can have machines with 21 strength, yet there´s some which have 7-9 strength. I really wish you could select which room types you want to improve to balance them. Inflation, Hair Restoration, Ultra Scanner, Electrolysis and Jelly Bat are the worst. I had to reload a previous saved game from like 30min ago just because when I was dealing with a epidemic, 5 big head patients was treated right before an earthquake, so the room exploded in less than a minute, while I was caring of the rest of the hospital...

The Jelly Bat is really annoying, because it´s the only room I haven´t seen with a strength better than 9, while the others can get higher than that.

You can, Improvements research will improve the strength of your machines (you'll have to replace them to get the actual benefit I believe) and Specialisation will focus on whatever you've selected to Concentrate Research on in the screen with overview of all your treatments. Select the approriate machine there to focus your research on improving the strength of that machine, and adjust the research-percentage to speed it up

I didn´t know you could select which machine you could improve!!

I´ve tried the "concentrate research" option and the AI keeps telling me other machines are being improved. That means you have higher chances of it being improved or should I be able to improve only selected machines?

Thanks in advance, that´s one of the things I´ve always wished on this game. Finding that option could make the game a lot more painless.

No one answered to this part, so I will: That is the way it was designed. Once a machine explodes the area of the room it was in becomes unusable. No need to do that, machines only explode after strength gets to 0, they don't become unstable at any point. Have some money around and replace the ones which are low strength (3-4) even when fully fixed. On some levels earthquakes will be strong enough to blow one of those up. Also, do not fix them too often, since that lowers their lifespan, having to replace them earlier than necesary.

If you only want one particular machine improved, put research on to 100% specialisation, and choose the illness that the machine is related to - e.g. Bloaty Head if you want to improve the Inflation Clinic machine. Once the helper announces it's improved, replace the machine and you should have a much stronger machine.

I find it's better to just put all the research points into 'Improvements' though, and not bother specialising, since it improves all the machines and they'll all need to be replaced at some stage.

To add upon this, there are basicly two numbers for each machine, that are important. Strength and uses.

A machine will blow up if the uses are bigger than the strength. Replacing the machine will reset both numbers, fixing it will reset the uses to 0.

The strength only gets reduced by 1 if the machine is fixed and the number of uses is already high (i think around 50% of the strength level).
So repairing a strength 12 machine, which has only 2 uses, will not reduce its strength.

I find frequent repairs very helpfull in preventing blow-ups. Especially as earth-quakes can add several uses to each machine (the biggest i remember is 5 uses).

I just had longest earthquake ever. It was like it deeded to destroy something! That is so stupid!

Why I cannot remove destroyed room?! This is utterly dumb!
This game was one of my favorite ones and I had it 10/10 but after discovering that it is only 5/10
Very dumb design!!! Player can magicaly place room and equipment but cannot remove room after equipment in it was destroyed?! SERIOUSLY? For that this game is no more my favorite. If two point hospital will have similar idiotic feature I will refund it.

Why don't you perceive it as a challenge? It happens in latter levels only and it brings additional opportunities to spice up the gameplay.

No not like this. Maybe some people can take it as a challenge and be ok with that. For me it is not logical. In terms of this game logic.

If I can make room in no time, it just pops into existence then why I cannot remove walls and equipment the same way?! No logic no fun for me. This game is specific but if it presents some kind of rules but can break them then it is not ok at all.
Good that in Two Point Hospital they did not go into that road.

You're talking about a game where patients can be afflicted with a bloaty head, which is then cured by popping and reinflating the head to the correct level. I don't think logic really applies :)

Can you read with understanding? I pointed this out what you used against my statement. I already explained it. It seems you could not comprehend.

Good news for you about Two-Point Hospital. You can delete/rebuild rooms after they machinery exploded.