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Thanks for letting me know, the page on the console was an early victim of getting used to the control scheme lol

Having played a bit more, I discovered the upstairs coffee machine doesn't require coins to operate. I am extremely thankful to have been wrong on this whole mechanic but it kind of double defeats the purpose of the vending machines and feels like the fault of not having had the time to even look around, not my own inattentiveness. Once you've made it through week one and you're a bit more established and have opened some crates, the game becomes a  whole lot more enjoyable but some things like flashlight and ATV batteries and triangulation tower maintenance remain a constant headache. I don't really get the purpose of the fuse system, and the triangulation tower upkeep in general. I think keep the upkeep minigame but get rid of the fuses (or else have them degrade slower AND start the player with several spares around the base). Having a way to target the towers would also be nice since the lights aren't always visible from the ground.

Things become a LOT less frustrating when you've gotten to max download speed and built up a slight signal backlog, but I'd say the current alpha's still got way, way too many cases of micromanagement and time sinks. When horror elements show up, I'm not in any scared or tense mood, I just think how this would affect my tasks and if I'll end up being punished for it. There are a lot of really good ideas and elements here but they feel marred by the insistence that everything take as long as possible and be a multi-step process. The kerfur is slower, your reports have a semi-randomized timer and you have a number of new things to worry about, and it at the very least feels like your stamina and hunger drain way faster than they used to. You end up being in a rush but having to wait, which causes frustration.

I'm also beginning to change my mind on the new controls. I liked the idea initially, with some caveats, but picking up and putting down items feels weird and you can't pick something up while holding something else, which gets especially annoying during garbage cleanup. On a related note, I really miss a lot of the physics interactions, like being able to slam or even throw a drive into a slot instead of having to hold and click it. It adds a lot of charm and fun to the way you interact with the world.

The triangulation should be tweaked, definitely. Currently it is easier if you start by moving the first two thingies manually and then command the third over. I basically don't use the mode that controls no thingy in particular, I start with 1, find a signal, bring over 2 manually, and by the time I'm done doing that, the cooldown is over and I can just summon thingy 3. It also took me way too long to realize that the triangulation is no longer bound by the cooldown at all, it only affects thingy movement and once each thingy is where you want it, you can just hit enter immediately, even if it's on cooldown.

Having completed five* days fully, I think the early game is too punishing and just demands a bit too much. 5 signals a day is tough to do in the early game and I found basically impossible when I had 2 days of bad weather in a row + a random event(?) that wouldn't let me sleep. I also don't mind the ATV battery mechanic as a way to force the player to engage with the world directly but the price for those things needs to be brought down or, even better, there should be a way to charge the battery in the base, otherwise using the ATV too much or turning the lights on turns into a massive expenditure. The thing I liked about the 0.8 early game was that there was downtime to explore and clean up the base, right now it feels like I can't take a single breath and sleeping through an entire night would destroy my economy. I have to walk because saving up for a new ATV battery feels like a pipe dream, as my priority are signal upgrades to actually get those 5 signals a day. That destroys my stamina, which is not great because nearly every night for a while there's been an that wakes you up and keeps you up until it randomly decides to stop. I've thus far seen one actual event in the base and it might have been scary, but all it felt was extremely frustrating because it was the third time in a row that during an already difficult stretch of the game, I couldn't sleep. I feel like the early game RNG should be significantly toned down and the ATV battery mechanic made less extreme and explained somewhere in the text tutorials

For things I disliked outright, I'm still early on but I simply don't understand what benefit the ATM/hard currency system adds to the game, same with limiting vending machine stock. Previously it was a decent way to just get some energy in a pinch, currently it defeats the purpose of ever using the vending machines because getting something from them requires me to walk around the back of alpha, navigate a finicky gui and then pick up several tiny objects off the ground. Combined with the limited stock, I don't really see a point in engaging with that whole set of mechanics whatsoever outside of dire circumstances.

Edit: I can't count + grammar

Honestly I like the degree of control it gives, I just wish there was some middle ground with fewer arcane button combos

All in all, I think this might be my favourite update VotV has ever had, but from my first impressions I do have some minor gripes.

Control scheme: I actually like it a lot. But I do feel like most if not all "press E" vs "hold E" interactions should be swapped (i.e. holding for physics manipulation, press once to interact). Feels a little more intuitive and is in line with the previous versions of the game. The little progress circles for hold interactions are also immensely useful but I feel like they're a bit too obtrusive, however, I presume this will change eventually.

Something I outright disliked, however, was the tutorial being a fair bit too hand-holding. I much preferred the previous approach where you could go through the text boxes at your own pace. A few interactions like the key card and having to get a signal to proceed should stay as a check to make sure the player is paying attention, but overall the 0.9.0 tutorial feels way, way too on-rails and part of learning the game is the ability to just walk around in a wider area and mess around with physics without consequences. Some parts of the text, especially signal processing could also use some editing to make it less wordy.

Lastly, perhaps this is a bit of a silly complaint, but I also think that the tutorial shouldn't mention weapons directly as a concept. Obviously, almost everyone coming into the game probably expects some degree of combat, but I'd like for that expectation to be a little more played with and not immediately validated, especially now that the tutorial is mandatory. I'd personally introduce the crowbar as just a handheld tool. It makes you slightly more nervous in a horror game when you have something obviously weapon-shaped but the game refuses to say directly whether or not you'll have to use it as a weapon.

All in all, this is just my opinion, take it or leave it, just wanted to post something that's more substantial than spamming "things are different gaem sux now" on the bug report thread.