Something NEEDS to be changed about the coordinate towers. I've completely given up on my current playthrough because of them, and I won't be touching this version until they're fixed (or at the very least, fix the setting that lets you disable coordinate tower decay).
First off, the tower repair minigame is atrocious. I didn't mind most of the other new minigames, they felt appropriately clunky for the janky old technology that we're working with, but the tower minigame is a pain in the ass and feels totally arbitrary. But, at least you can turn it off.
More importantly, the decay rate is absolutely ABSURD, to the point where I wonder if it's bugged and decaying faster than intended. There were multiple occasions where I'd fix a tower, only for it to be broken again by the time I got back to the base. Kerfur can't fix them, there's no way to upgrade their stability, fuses are expensive (and basically pointless with how quickly they break), you can't maintain their "health" like you can with transformers, and having one break completely halts your progress until you run across the map and play patty-cake with the goddamn tower for five minutes.
but aside from that...
I really do like the update overall. It's definitely got some kinks to iron out, but other than the coordinate towers, most of the changes are pretty positive.
The visual updates are great and I (mostly) like the more immersive minigames and upgrades, particularly the zip drives and all the new stuff for the ATV. (other than the battery issues, but there's a whole thread about that so I won't go into it)
I honestly don't have any strong opinions about the new controls one way or the other, but one thing I DO really like is being able to shift-click to store held items onto the drone. I'd love it if that functionality got added to other containers as well, it would save so much headache if I could just shove an item directly into a box without having to do a bunch of inventory-juggling first.
The pacing and difficulty of early game is definitely a bit much, I think this update really wants to lean into the idea that Dr. Kel is single-handedly running a base that's meant to have like a dozen employees, with extremely outdated and poorly-maintained equipment. Which is fine and all, but I've got a good amount of VotV playthroughs under my belt and I was still struggling to get daily tasks done consistently until around my third week, even after getting a fairly early KerfurO. I can only imagine how much more stressful it would be to a new player who doesn't know any tricks to make the early game easier.
The forced tutorial is a little annoying, but I'm hoping it's just a band-aid fix and tutorialization will be improved later down the line. Although it is funny to see DrNose's increasingly unhinged attempts at making people actually learn to play the game, instead of ignoring the tutorial and hints and then complaining that they don't know what to do.