I've been trying 0.9 and it's just unpleasant to play, excessively tedious at best. I was trying it out on Ambient to get a feel for it and I feel like I can say that I would've dropped it quickly if I was new.
The things 0.9 does better than 0.8.
- The drone is probably one of the few outright improvements, it just fits better even if it's loud. The bag is nice too, much easier to move around than the crates left by the drone in 0.8.
- The new little paths to previously disconnected satellite, I noticed it with India and how I didn't need to just turn into the trees to get to it.
- The trash piles are pretty nice, they make cleaning up a bit easier and faster than hunting for small scraps.
Mixed changes.
- Base is much more detailed, but it's so cluttered and damaged that it's going to take forever unless you're bringing in a sellgun, mop, rake, and wall repair tool in the mailbox. If you're not bothered by the mess, then you'll be fine.
- The map looks much better, there's a lot of detail. The bridges look better, the roads look better and feel easier to drive on, the forest looks like a proper forest. However, the forest's new density means you won't travel much of it unless you like walking.
- The ATV has a lot of interesting modifications you can make to it, going by the shop. However, it feels much less powerful, more fragile to drive around, and you can't just keep the lights on.
- The new controls are more simple but much slower. I could see a new player picking them up easier.
- The physical modules are whatever, the radar modules look interesting but that's about it. I don't know why they explode when I try to install them though.
- I didn't see any of the new server repair minigames, I just got the classic numbers one so I can't really comment, but it should make it less repetitive and I appreciate having the toggle for each of them in the world settings to have the option of disabling any of the ones I'd find too unpleasant.
Downgrades in 0.9 compared to 0.8.
- The new signal detection minigame takes ages, ping cooldown is required to avoid having signals vanish as you triangulate. It was frustrating to have the signal vanish just as I was putting in the third CR position or getting the lines drawn, and it happened 3 times in a row.
- The floppy discs work well for flavor, but do add more tedium. You don't need to double check the hash, but the error rate makes it take longer than if you quintuple checked the hash. Transferring to a zip drive, while understandable, just adds a bit more annoyance.
- The CRs themselves and the fuses. Just more early game pain to deal with, thankfully they can be disabled in settings.
- Transformers have a new set of minigames and seem to fail faster than in 0.8.
- MREs are just terrible, not even worth trying to use. Barely give any food, Kel won't eat much of them, and they've got a chance to give food poisoning on top of that.
- It feels petty, but the drives don't go into your hand when you pull them. It's slightly more annoying, even more so because the new controls make holding items take a little bit longer.
- The damn wind. While it is thematic, between it, the buzzing of flies, and the constant stomach rumbling of Kel refusing to eat MREs, I started to go a bit mad.
Overall, 0.9 feels more immersive and flavorful to me than 0.8 does, however that doesn't make it more enjoyable to play.