I understand you don't want the experienced players tearing into some newbie island, so the colonies are a wise decision. But is should have been PvP in the colonies then. It isn't, the implementation is flawed.
And you wanted to fix the "nobody makes their own weapons" situation. You could have used the colonies to do this.
How it should have been:
- You use the regular troops to conquer the colonies, but they need to get a marine (or conquistador) training.
- Recruits and bowmen can't be used to conquer colonies.
- Do "a Cyprus" on the players with huge stockpiles of weapons in their star menu. Rust will turn these weapons into iron ore.
It really is a shame since a lot of developer time was wasted on such a flawed idea. Who is responsible for this mess? Who signs off on these stupid ideas? The game has been going in the wrong direction for years now and it is about time to start pointing fingers!