First of all, welcome to the forums. Secondly, read the Newbie FAQ in its entirety. It will help greatly.
1) they are killed easily by Point Defense Cannons
2) not really, play with the strategies and designs. over time you will get the hang of it, but the AI does strange things sometimes
3) yes, but is SE4, for every stragegy, there is a counter strategy. don't get locked into one.
4)
5) get the TDM modpack for single player play. it makes the AI much better. Add-on for question 3, the Space Vikings are pretty good at capturing ships.
6) no. in simultaneous games you can launch them automatically by launching them then repeating orders. in sequential games you cannot do this. you will still have to order the fighters to the destination. a better way is to have a transport or carrier pick them up and drop them at the destination - then you could repeat orders for that ship more effectively.
7) read the Newbie FAQ. it is in 4.4.15
8) once again the designs and strategies govern this. the "max range" strategy can be used to approximate this but it isn't as good as doing it yourself in tactical combat. the good news is that when playing another human, there is no tactical combat so you are well advised to learn how to get your ships to do what you want in strategic combat.
9) Yes, check out PBW. there are a few tournaments: KOTH, etc.
10) Yes, read the Newbie FAQ section 4.6
12) yes. all resources (minerals, organics, rads, intel, research) need a spaceport in the system in order to feed the supply. the reports show a pink icon and production in parentheses if you don't and these resourses are wasted until you have a spaceport. The exception to this is if your race has the "natural merchant" trait - they don't need spaceports ever.
You would never be banned by this community for being new. Quite the opposite, actually. This is a great, mature community. You'll like it. Maybe you'll like us too...
