after beating the game, I think the new astrape facility is super easy compared to others because the energy surge is useless to prevent player from out food and water because of how much loot around the facility. After you unlock the train, it becomes easiest facility
Pretty sure that part of that feeling is that this update had a lot of under-the-hood work going on with the systems to give cross-compatible experience for common tasks like gathering water in multiple places, taking the same route in different directions, or installing solar panels that would not have given a speed boost from similar actions before, in addition to the content update.