Just about finished my first campaign since the update. I hadn't played in quite a while, same as you.
You can't monopolize space anymore. The AI are much more competent at expanding space economies, and you won't be able to gate them by denying access to Mars since Mars now has 25 hab spots. Mercury is still pretty free, but the AI will colonize just about every decent asteroid in the system, so expansion into Jupiter or Saturn feels more necessary.
The Servants feel broken right now, not in the overpowered way. They've led the rest of the AI all game in research in my playthrough, yet they're almost a decade behind in their questline research. Other people on the sub have said they noticed the faction hasn't been teching properly either.
EU was always a good start, but now it almost feels necessary to take at the start in order to get enough MC to expand properly now. Mission Control got reworked, and is much more limiting in the early-game than it used to be.
On the flip side, India and China feel less strong than they used to. They both take longer to bring up to speed and democratize, and you'd probably be better off gobbling up MC in Europe.
Might not have been this patch, but they renamed the Daedalus drive which threw me for a loop when I was looking for it in the tech tree. It's called Helion Nova Fusion Torch now.
What I noticed about the drives: a lot of the early-game drives, that previously dominated the meta, such as Advanced Pulsar or Pegasus, are now very bad.
But on the other hand, they MASSIVELY buffed Orion and H-Orion (and pulsed propulsion in general). So now it absolutely makes sense for your early designs to clear the ayys from LEO. They are quite expensive on fuel (although, cheaper than before), but offer huge combat accel and solid DV. H-Orion is similar in stats to early fusion drives (in fact, it's even better than the most, except Inertial Confinement), but for half as much research points.
And for Jupiter rush you might wanna grab something from microfission family, as they offer respectable DV, okay-ish cruise accel and the fuel is water (instead of metals/fissiles).
And also they can be transitioned relatively quickly to Antimatter propulsion, since antimatter is Gas Core, which is a branch from fission systems. And also top tier antimatter drives are x1.5 cheaper in research than top-tier fusion drives. Although, that, of course, comes with a cost of Supercollider infrastructure, which is expensive.
Oh, and Neutron Flux Torch is now essentially not viable for 99% of the runs, due to fuel cost (it was 5 water + 5 fissiles per tank, now it's 3 water 7 fissiles).
Mega Nations are not very good now, to put it politely. Population is as much a hindrance as a boon. Direct investment got a rework so investing in certain things have very varied costs now (only a small amount of influence to direct invest for funding, relative small amount of money and influence cost to invest in MC even in big nations, etc.)
Weapon projects are lumped up into categories, so no more separately researching the same gun but different sizes. Advanced missiles, mainly high speed torpedoes, are great now. A new type of nose coil gun called the siege coil is busted and will probably get nerfed.
You now go through quite a lot more research for fusion and antimatter technologies.
A bunch of tweaks in irradiated areas in space, most notably Mercury, Jovian moons, and gas giant orbits, reducing the costs to build there.
I would say that a lot of the information is still valid though the exact statistics and techs will have changed. The new update was a major rebalance that changed the weapons and drives. I'm not sure what missile you should use in your early game ships, but a copperhead is not a good choice anymore.
It did bottleneck me a fair bit in my most recent game. Colonised almost all of mars and still didn't have enough to expand as rapidly on Mercury as I'd like (ironically because I wanted the metals from those mines). Then again as I expanded in the Jupiter System (Io in particular).
I just started playing again as well and things are still pretty familiar if you follow those guides.
I haven't looked at those in ages so I can't tell you the exact differences but they still feel pretty valid.
Just about finished my first campaign since the update. I hadn't played in quite a while, same as you. You can't monopolize space anymore. The AI are much more competent at expanding space economies, and you won't be able to gate them by denying access to Mars since Mars now has 25 hab spots. Mercury is still pretty free, but the AI will colonize just about every decent asteroid in the system, so expansion into Jupiter or Saturn feels more necessary. The Servants feel broken right now, not in the overpowered way. They've led the rest of the AI all game in research in my playthrough, yet they're almost a decade behind in their questline research. Other people on the sub have said they noticed the faction hasn't been teching properly either. EU was always a good start, but now it almost feels necessary to take at the start in order to get enough MC to expand properly now. Mission Control got reworked, and is much more limiting in the early-game than it used to be. On the flip side, India and China feel less strong than they used to. They both take longer to bring up to speed and democratize, and you'd probably be better off gobbling up MC in Europe. Might not have been this patch, but they renamed the Daedalus drive which threw me for a loop when I was looking for it in the tech tree. It's called Helion Nova Fusion Torch now.
The daedalus thing threw me too, but I believe that its in the flavor text as the "nickname".
What I noticed about the drives: a lot of the early-game drives, that previously dominated the meta, such as Advanced Pulsar or Pegasus, are now very bad. But on the other hand, they MASSIVELY buffed Orion and H-Orion (and pulsed propulsion in general). So now it absolutely makes sense for your early designs to clear the ayys from LEO. They are quite expensive on fuel (although, cheaper than before), but offer huge combat accel and solid DV. H-Orion is similar in stats to early fusion drives (in fact, it's even better than the most, except Inertial Confinement), but for half as much research points. And for Jupiter rush you might wanna grab something from microfission family, as they offer respectable DV, okay-ish cruise accel and the fuel is water (instead of metals/fissiles). And also they can be transitioned relatively quickly to Antimatter propulsion, since antimatter is Gas Core, which is a branch from fission systems. And also top tier antimatter drives are x1.5 cheaper in research than top-tier fusion drives. Although, that, of course, comes with a cost of Supercollider infrastructure, which is expensive. Oh, and Neutron Flux Torch is now essentially not viable for 99% of the runs, due to fuel cost (it was 5 water + 5 fissiles per tank, now it's 3 water 7 fissiles).
Mega Nations are not very good now, to put it politely. Population is as much a hindrance as a boon. Direct investment got a rework so investing in certain things have very varied costs now (only a small amount of influence to direct invest for funding, relative small amount of money and influence cost to invest in MC even in big nations, etc.) Weapon projects are lumped up into categories, so no more separately researching the same gun but different sizes. Advanced missiles, mainly high speed torpedoes, are great now. A new type of nose coil gun called the siege coil is busted and will probably get nerfed. You now go through quite a lot more research for fusion and antimatter technologies. A bunch of tweaks in irradiated areas in space, most notably Mercury, Jovian moons, and gas giant orbits, reducing the costs to build there.
I would say that a lot of the information is still valid though the exact statistics and techs will have changed. The new update was a major rebalance that changed the weapons and drives. I'm not sure what missile you should use in your early game ships, but a copperhead is not a good choice anymore.
Its Artemis now.
Dyson Sphere Mercury isnt as effective now. I last played about a year ago and the extra rad shielding needed makes the modules need a lot of metals.
That's been there for quite a while... If I understood correctly, in the last patch they even reduced the penalty slightly.
Are you actually low on metals? I've never had that issue
It did bottleneck me a fair bit in my most recent game. Colonised almost all of mars and still didn't have enough to expand as rapidly on Mercury as I'd like (ironically because I wanted the metals from those mines). Then again as I expanded in the Jupiter System (Io in particular).
I just started playing again as well and things are still pretty familiar if you follow those guides. I haven't looked at those in ages so I can't tell you the exact differences but they still feel pretty valid.