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I'm already addicted, so I'm in a tough spot.  Continue blazing through the campaign, or wait until the final product to get the "full experience"?

Someone tell me what to do.

Can't tell you what to do, but can tell you what I'm doing. I played through two campaigns after the tutorials and then started sandbox mode just to see how large I can grow a colony without all the mission content. The sandbox is a slower growth (and somewhat difficult at start) so it's a nice way to see all the parts of the game balancing (or not) and give good beta feedback. 

Excellent answer!  I'm through the first two missions as well, so maybe it's sandbox time!

Awesome 🙂  I love this thread!

Nearly the same question for me; should I wait until a more polished experience an the Steam release?

I was only able to wait until the last big update... I am now downloading the game through the itch.io app 🙂

Welcome to Aven then. But maybe you will need pay your attention to some aspect of the game or your colony will either die or leave your colony:

• Power: Never have enough of them. And if you low on power -> Your food inside storages will decompose -> you lose food faster -> without food your colony will starve and if your food production during spring summer and fall is not fast enough then just 2 or 3 winter and you throw your hand up and say I'm done.
• Nanite: Not enough and never have enough of them in early and mid game.
• Food: Try to build 3 farm of each type of food at the beginning so your colonist won't starve and have some extra food to survive your first and second winter. Also make sure your power grid can handle during winter at the end or your colony will fall like a brick.

And currently, food and power are the ones that still somewhat too hard right now. Especially when you start with map like Azara or Crest. If you want an easy start but difficult slowly increase as your colony grow then wait for "Lightning rod / Turret" patch which will provide some power to your colony's powergrid or recharge nearby batteries during thunderstorm (winter). But you edge to play then try to build Solar Generator with Batteries in formation below:

S S S [ S = Solar Panel ]
S B S [ B = Battery ]
S S S

this formation will provide +2 power gain (for each solar panel in formation) and therefore you can gain extra 16 power during winter for each formation you have in your colony.

When your colony population reach 120 then build 1 Police drone station to prevent crime.

When you reach your 9th Winter (Sandbox mode) or when your colony advisor says something scrubber / creeper: build few Scrubber drone station around your colony and try to upgrade them to T3 if you can to protect you from flying tentacle creatures [ Image ]

And lastly, if you play Crest map, don't expand too fast because one of three Geothermal vent ( the one on top right ) is bugged or something and you can't build Geothermal generator on this one so: you will loose a large amount of power (200 pow with 100% efficiency) along with occasion toxic cloud coming out from this vent and have potential to kill your colonist. So the only way to prevent it by build a Geothermal vent or replace every Intake fan in your colony with Air filter and i recommend you do this if you play in campaign mode and unable to reach those distant vents.

If you impatient to read this wall of text: Play campaign in their display order and you will learn everything you need to know about this game mechanics. And those campaign are fun and somewhat hilarious 😀

Thanks for your kind advices, I have also been watching a few let's play and was able to dive easily into the campaign 🙂