Starting up with Beam NG - Help me decide how.

This is such a great game.
I haven't been involved in games for quite a few years, been pursuing other adventures.
But Beam NG Drive has brought me back.
I loved the demo and I want to support the development and add my feedback.

At this time I am running a quad i5 @ 3.30, 16gb ram with Radeon HD 6800 on 64-bit win 7 Home premium.
I'm hoping the full game will run as well as the testers I've downloaded.

I am more interested in what is the best way to download the game and keep it updated as a stand alone.
Is the stand alone only offline? or is the game offline only right now.

Are all updates major and full size downloads? or are there patches?
Once we pay and download, are we in the loop for good?
Are there any drawbacks or advantages of steam play?
That may sound noob but I've never played games on steam. sorry.

I'm currently testing and having great fun with my old Saitek R440 and an Oculus Thrift I built. lol
what a great game, I've been waiting for something like this.

Thanks
I look forward to downloading the game

 

Buying it via Steam is generally the easiest route. Updates are not full-size downloads. Yes, you're in the loop for good when you purchase the game. Even alpha testers like me who got the game in August of 2013 will eventually get access to the full version, no matter how far away it is. There aren't many drawbacks to playing on Steam. You can still play offline through Steam.

 

Thanks Jack
If I play via steam will I still be able to tweak the game and test mods, I don't really play online games.
If possible I'd like to not have my game PC touch the internet. I don't have it protected and prefer to limit what I add to it.

I prefer to download things on my laptop and load them onto a clean pc
Can I still access minor updates if I don't use steam to DL
Cheers

 

You're welcome.

Yes, you can do that just as easily as you can with a non-steam version. There's no advantage to being online when playing BeamNG anyway.

Not completely sure about this, but according to this post by Nadeox, you might have to download the zip again if you don't redeem your Steam key.

 

I think that if you purchase through Humble you'll get a Steam key* and if it works like other things I've purchased through Humble you'll also get a DRM-free direct download which you can use to install the game onto a PC with no internet access whatsoever. Downloading the game in this way (through Humble) most likely means that you will redownload the entire game for each update. If you get tired of that, use Steam. There's no downside to the Humble purchase other than having to setup both a Humble account and a Steam account. The Humble option is available directly on this website's front page.

I stand ready to be corrected.

*(which I think you'd want to go ahead and redeem onto a Steam account you own, even if you don't use it right now)