im sure there are some fan-made articles out there, i personally have never found myself in your position (though i did manage to get myself into a negative income situation once... but that was an experiment)
best thing really is to keep going at it until you learn the best way for you to play
a few things to think of though:
1. Fleet Supply - Each level of fleet supply research increases the amount of tax on your credit and resource income. So if you do too much of that research too early, you could be sabotaging yourself. It would explain why your econ is so weak.
2. Planet Upgrades - Im sure you know, when you colonise a planet, you have to upgrade it so that the planet makes a profit. Otherwise, it runs at a defecit, and thats another thing that could be sabotaging your econ. If you forget to upgrade, you arent going to be making any money.
3. Research - There are a few research topics that improve resource and credit income, or unlock new structures to increase resource/credit income. Try researching these and building a few to boost income.
4. AI Types - When you play Solo, the standard AI behaviour is set to random, but its ny opinion that 'random' chooses Aggressive more often than not. As such, Aggressive AI usually foregoes research etc in order to spam more ships early game and rush you. If you want more time at the beginning of the game to build up etc, just set the AI behaviour to Fortifier, Economist or Researcher, whichever you prefer.
anyway, thats all i can think of atm, the above mentioned reasons for poor econ is pretty easy to mess up when you are new to the game, i wouldnt worry about it too much. as for ships, the only thing preventing you from building ships is how much money you can spare for spending on ships, and then a bit later fleet supply, so considering you are having problems with econ its easy to understand why... again, being new i dont think its a problem, keep playing and you'll find a good balance.
Really, with Online games, just make sure you have some good friends or find some nice 'pros' who will help you and teach you. SP and MP really are different games, SP you get to take your time and build up fleets and tech up, fortify the crap out of planets, whatever you like really, while with MP (Online) you have to be a little more on your toes, optimise your build orders, really know the damage values and whats effective vs what etc etc.
anyway good luck, hope you can figure out whats going wrong
