Hello, first of all, I would like to explain the current situation of the game as I see it. At one point, the game lost a lot of CIR guys (so I've been told), because they have conquered everything and had no enemies and got bored. Then after a while, new guys (along with some vets) came to the game and started claiming beta terminals. Afterwards, the CIR vets came back, saw they had people to kill and have fun, hence started counquering again. Now, here we are, newbies getting pounded (that's how it should be IMO) by CIR and their subcorps. There are massive operations going on, either nudging the "owners" of beta and gamma islands, some covert mining, artifacting and nonetheless, all out warfare. The game is player driven. It's all about the players, really.

To sum it up, I like to see the CIR and co. as the Big Bad Wolf (no offence), prying with its fangs on basically the rest of the server. The RUST coalition (which I am part of) is fighting, yet losing. But here is the thing: Players are uniting against a common enemy, and that is FUN! We are getting pounded and having fun. We dont have much EP nor resources, not to even talk about the sheer amount of bots cir has. BUT that is all fun, because players have a common goal. Now come the nerfs. Those nerfs do make fighting with CIR a lot worse because of:

1) ratting is the game's main NIC outcome, again, CIR will faceroll the rats, whereas we, who had a chance against the rats we were farming have to go a tier lower (which is a lot). All in all, less kernels and nic.

2) the point i really want to focus on is mining and harvesting.The corporations will mine their ore and keep it in corp to produce the equipment and bots. THE MARKET IS PRETTY MUCH DEAD!! I don't see a reason for CIR to post any of their ores (except epi - highly priced) on the market. Now that we've established that ore will mostly stay in corp, here's the thing. CIR already has outrageous amounts of equips and bots, whereas RUST has quite little stock. We are less able to keep the mining up with bot production. We need to actually have bots for CIR to blow em up. Essentially, mining nerfs will hit newbs a lot more than veteran players.

For the game to function in the near future, we will need to uphold the clash of powers. I am perfectly fine with RUST being weak yet on the rising side and CIR being godly. But if you nerf our primary sources of income, we might not be able to keep the struggle going. AND THAT IS THE MAIN DRIVING FORCE OF THE GAME. The clash of powers, the pvp aspect of fighting for power, the pve aspect of supporting the front lines. IMO, atm, this game is a fine *** simulation of WW2. I enjoyed it so much I freaking bought 7 accounts in my mere 2 weeks of playing the game. And i had a blast, belive me.

What i suggest you do is the following:
1) reduce the mining nerfs, that is the main crippling factor of the newbie corps (remember, if we are too weak, cir wont have anyone to blow up and both parties will be unhappy), cause ore production cant keep up with industry and market prices are outrageous. And not to mention CIR prob refines and produces at 375 bonus factories anyways. We are still stuck at 50. A 20% nerf on mining is a 20% nerf on our industry and like 5-10% neft on their industry, cause of all that bonus.
2) When ratting, newbies are the only ones getting nerfed in that aspect (i thought your idea of nerfing was to get more newbies to the game). Or make the tier difference lower. 4th star is many times better in loot than the 3rd star, there should be a diffence in loot, but not as high as it is now (meaning 1 cir can beat 5-10 newbs in ratting easily, unless they group up - newbie unfriendly).
3) aside from teritorial warfare, there is nothing to do in the game to be honest. When you are sitting on 20 gropho mk2s and billions of ore, you have nothing to do if there is no war. And we need the war to keep going. And there is going to be no war if either side falls to pieces.
4) With the intent to nerf the vets, you actually crippled the newbs you were planning to buff. We are going to have an easier time fighting with cir (but not much), yet on the other hand, we might not be having enough bots to actually fight in, hence you're crippling us.
5) Your balancing idea was good, but you cant just flat out nerf everything, because it brings the problems you've seen. And you're losing players this way.

Please don't make me regret buying 7 accounts.
A big shout for both RUST and CIR coalitions, because if it werent for your war, I probalby wouldnt have kept playing the game.
And I'm having a blast with the game!