Some story beats are just way too easy to miss unless you've gone out of your way to have a friend guide you or googled it. I recently watched a friend do a blind playthrough with no backseating and they missed so much of the main story beats. barely anything spooky or intriguing happened to them. Just because they weren't at the right place at the right time. I think there should be some more wiggle room on some events. Things that fly by too quick or you just miss entirely if you're not around. I imagine for some events you're going for a fleeting glance kinda vibe. Leaving the player speculating about what they saw. But a lot of the time. If you don't know what's happening or aren't there for it most players just write it off or have to instantly go to google to actually understand what just happened.
That being said it's easy to point out an issue but not have a solution. I think a good idea would be to let the watch be a base equipment item. You're not really gatekeeping much by selling it. And upgrade it a little. Let it be linked to the bases radar and ping off when activity is detected there. Thus forcing or prompting the player to go there and be there. with added wiggle room for actually seeing or having a chance at seeing what is going on before things zoom, run or teleport away.
Another peeve is that you're reworking things to be tedious I feel. I understand that the vision changes along the way but it feels like development time gets spent trying to make people who have gotten well versed with the games lives harder. I was not a big fan of the addition of the new towers, the rework of the hash code system and the controls. I understand that it may be innovation and trying to make players leave the base once they get too comfortable but I feel like it was just making the game harder for the sake of making it harder. It didn't add anything. It just made people sigh and roll their eyes. Taking them away from things they found fun to have to go and fix something out of the way just to accomplish their main job. Do I have a solution for the 'issue' of players just becoming base dwellers? No. But I didn't think that solution landed either i'm sorry to say. (note after thinking. maybe i'd feel better about it if those towers broke waaaaaay later into a playthrough. Around the average time people acquire something omega. )
Apart from those. The only thing I that bothers me is that the most recent updates and patches seem more unreliable than older versions. Some main story beats still do not work in the current version. I know it's likely a tedious test process considering it's a long playthrough game. But it really detours me from returning for a fresh playthrough when I know some things just aren't going to work.
All that being said I don't mean it to sound too critical I know it's in alpha. I love the game and the ambition it's going for. I can't count how many times i've recommended it. Keep up the work!