Thats something you can expect soon. Will or should be part of our early access.
Does Early Access mean Steam Early Acess or do you guys have something else in mind? If you are sceptical about releasing on Steam, just look at the sales of Squad, pretty much the same story as you guys. From mod to game. The servers are full 24/7 and they are 40 player servers on average. And even, if someone sees it, but doesn't buy the game, he can tell a friend, who will.