I was on this server for a stint when I first started.
Unless its changed, and I don't see any signs that it has, the mentality there is very much "capitol ship or go home". With the stupidly high mining bonuses, you basically have unlimited resources. Which means everything is built on a huge scale. And instead of actually trying to help newbies to the server, they run pirates designed to be a challenge to capitol ships because the oldbies get bored with their sector spanning titans.
It was literally a case of "If you don't have at least 10 million shields, you can't go outside" because the pirate swarms would tear you to pieces. And nobody cared as long as the bigshots on the server got to have a reason to actually fire their planet killer weapons instead of just sit there and let their destroyer sized turrets shoot stuff for them.
The mining bonus is there so people don't have to grind for weeks on end to build an internet spaceship. Even with the bonus you won't be building a server limit capital overnight.
The server isn't "capital ship or go home" the pirates are designed to be challenging, jumping to the conclusion that because we have hard pirates we hate new players and don't help them is a fanciful stretch. It is also pretty insulting to the many long term players I see every day answering questions people could learn from a casual glance at the games wiki.
The pirates provide a great lesson to new players, space is dangerous and you will probably die. You don't require 10mil shields to leave home, you need half a brain and a casual knowledge of the game mechanics.
Our pirates are designed to be challenging but not unbeatable, I designed them with weaknesses and where possible built them in ways that provide an obvious counter.
Unfortunately though many players and I suspect you are one of them only care about two things.... "how much shield and recharge should I have in order to farm the pirates risk free?" even though you complain the server has a stupidly high mining bonus, the idea of pirates that might force you to actually mine resources instead farming easy pirates for them is some how a negative.
Players that think like this are the same people who will build massive ships and spawn 10+ waves of pirates happily nomming away while the server gets lagged to hell. Excuse me if I don't cater to this dull and self interested player anymore than I'd bother to placate the blubbering of a person who probably got one shotted in their starter ship and ragequit after the "bigshots" told him to get a bigger boat.