Honestly, the core game is fun enough that the patience is well worth it! Figured I'd pitch in, just now it seems like I ran into a couple of issues:
Good news, I finally made it to a settlement beyond the starting area! Bad news, the guards seemed to want to kill me on sight! I had neutral reputation with the faction, and I could still talk to them and even accept quests normally, but for some reason whenever they saw me around they decided to bump into me and deal some -1s. Figured it was time to hit the road again!
After another day of travelling, it looks like my save became unloadable. Before that happened, it was seizing up and freezing, taking a long time to load changes to structures like building a campfire - but loading things like shooting mobs pretty quickly. Not sure what the bottleneck was, but figured you'd like to know!
I'm sure hearing this project is running into issues like this probably sucks somewhat, it looks like you're working really hard and actively developing it. All I can say is I'm grateful for the game, and whatever time you have dedicated and continue to dedicate to it! This is honestly a super cool project that scratches a one-of-a-kind itch, and It's been well worth the time I've spent on it!