Newbie looking for some early help

You actually learn fast playing online. You dont have to unlearn strategies that only work with AI.  Online settings are at the fastest settings, quick start, locked allies and pirates off.

Learn how to expand properly and what units counter what. 

Watch replays.

Well most of us play on random maps in general online so if you ever want to get into the field you should play these the most.

What exactly have you been doing to lose so quickly to the Easy AI. It be nice if you can post a replay or something.

You probably want to start with a 4 player medium random map

I am mostly an avid TEC player both online and SP and generally this is probably the easiest of races to get into for newbies.

1. As your first capital ship you should start off with a Sova (assuming you arn't rushing use missle batteries and fighters) or a Akkan (with colonize ability). These are essential for rapid expansion of your empire. The Sova (preferabble to get 2) will destroy any and all militia quickly. The Akkan can just colonize and run while you place turrets to kill off the militia. If you use the Akkan then make sure you kill of siege frigates first. LRMs you can deal with by adding a second turret once they fire on your first.

2. In random maps most of the time you have a astroid sitting next to your homeworld. Get this immediately and you can do this quickly and easily with a single colony frigate. Rush your colony frigate to colonize the astroid. The siege frigate will start to bombard but if you put a turret right in front the frigate right at the closest point to the astroid. It will back off for a second and the turret will proceed to kill the frigates and you can jump yours out. This saves some time rather than spending and sending more ships to kill the militia.

3. You should expand your empire to vital chokepoints around the map. Once you have these just completely lock them down with a Starbase. With your starbase you should have at least 2 repair bays(preferablly more), 2 frigate factories, and a small fleet to deal with ships such as Orgovs and LRMs. Upgrade your SB to full because AIs always have the tendency to suicide rush them.

4. Once that happens you should work on your economy to a sufficient level. Trade ports at all your planets will do them well. If you have a desert that isn't on the front lines fill all of the logistic slots with trade ports. Planet upgrades should be limited to population (so you don't lose money on them - get these as soon as you get the planet) and logistic upgrades.

As for units the LRM is going to be your main frigate for the most part. Hoshikos (repair cruisers) are essential for any TEC fleet as they are probably the best support cruiser in the entire game especially with demo drones. Have a couple flaks here and there to deal with fighters. After that the units you choose are just mostly preference when it comes to AI.

Also the AI will send units against you so it's best you fleet a little bit early with 2 military research stations off the bat and get a few LRMs as quickly as possible.

One thing you can do is to actually play a game without the AI. Generate a random medium (or even higher if you really want to explore) map and then proceed at your own pace to expand, while trying out all the techs and units of a given faction. Leave the pirates on if you want a bit of combat experience (they don't bombard planets until 45 minutes into the game, and you should have several planets by then). Once you get a feel for taking neutral planets and a rough idea of what all the units/abilities/techs do, you should be able to compete with the AI.

A 2v2 can be a good idea, with unfair teams even if you need it (You and a hard AI versus two easies). The AI is obviously not a very good source to learn from but it does know what everything does, and it may pick up some slack from you while you're getting organized.

I really appreciate the replies, particularly Rovert10's.  I had been playing as the Vasari but have switched to TEC now.  Your help in focusing my attention on the LRMs and Hoshikos has improved my combat experience.  I was able to pretty easily win a 4 player FFA on medium random map.

I moved on to normal difficulty opponents - same style map - and it went relatively well but late game I've gotten into a bit of a stalemate with another TEC AI (again, normal difficulty).  The other 2 AI are at peace with the two of us and I have been unable to persuade them to attack my main enemy (so that I could come in the backdoor and mop up).  As such, we each are concentrating our entire fleets on 1 front.

I've teched pretty hard and am basically maxed on all but the last tier of civil and military tech.  I also have fully unlocked all ship slots and have built my fleet up to max several times - mixing in a few other types of ships here and there.  Then, with this literally full fleet I've attacked his bases and lost 3 times now.  I've even come in and tried building starbases during the attacks but they can't seem to get upgraded fast enough to matter during the attack.

I've also tried pumping culture in from the neighboring worlds but he seems to be countering that.

I feel pretty confident in holding him off until I come up with some awesome plan, I just haven't figured out what that plan should be yet.

At this point I don't know what else to do other than go for that big cannon and try and shoot at him from a planet away.

He's attacked me a few times at a side base that was undefended.  When that happens I've gone in and wiped out one of his planets but we end up just trading basically.

Any general suggestions how to turn the tide in a stalemate like this?  I really don't feel pressured by him, but I certainly can't continue my interstellar dominance with this alien in the way.

Thanks again!

Culture isn't very effective in vanilla Sins, you should only really build it to stop your opponents culture from affecting you and for the 10% income bonus, never to hurt your opponent.

Build bombers. Lots and lots of bombers. Get 100 squads worth and you can wipe out anything from the other side of the gravity well, and the AI has no idea how to counter it. Also makes most fortifications and starbases useless.

Just to be clear, you're talking about building carriers and choosing to have them build bombers instead of fighters - right?  Or is there some other unit with that term?

Also I'm playing Trinity, or I believe I am, which should mean I'm playing with all the expansions currently out there.  The game isn't very explicit about Sins vs. Entrenchment vs. Diplomacy.  Is that what you're speaking of?

Thanks for the suggestion!

Yup, you want a few fighters to distract their fighters, but mostly bombers.

Yeah, if you can build starbases and envoy cruisers you have the whole thing.

Get a marz to level 6. Its auto win against ai