I've wanted to play this game ever since it was first announced but I've waited hoping that patches and updates would fix the performance and optimisation issues, are these issues now fixed, is the game playable also are there any recommended mods worth using, specs are i5 7600k, gtx1070,16GB RAM so should not be a problem.

Yeah, you should be fine with that setup. I'm running a GTX1050 without issue -- although I don't try to push the graphics settings. Opinions abound about how/why/what to tweak to improve performance and a lot of it comes down to personal preference. For example, I run with VSYNC disabled and accept a bit of tearing for a (possible) performance gain.

One thing that helped a lot but which is tangential to graphics per se was to turn OFF mouse smoothing. Without, good; with, sometimes when I turned rapidly the screen would freeze but the turn would continue. Suddenly I'd be looking 90-deg to the side or something like that. Probably just a specific combination of mouse/driver/update rate.

Can't help with mods; I play it pretty straight.

There have been enough changes from the early days that if you have an old saved game I'd recommend archiving it and starting from scratch. Build a base early. Follow the base technician missions and the Artemis quest (they don't interfere with each other) and you'll have a good foundation to build on.

Have fun!

Thanks very much, appreciated. I really wanted the game to be good so I was very dissapointed with initial reviews and feedback and I didn't play it but hopefully now it will still live up to some of my expectations and it's on sale for £16 so a good time to try it.