The tooltips there is now is great, but some of them is difficult to read, and i could use with alot more tooltips. A tutorial would also be really really helpful. Right now i have a difficult time of actually establish anything, of having some sort of gameplan to go out from with that ridiculous huge tech tree( wich i still quite like) to choose from. How do you choose wich to research? do you spread it out on all the 4 branches or do you focus on 1 branch only ?. the mining resources, and artifacts is also quite a mystery to me. i got my first mining base, but what do you use it for, is it for special kinds of weapons and armor later on ?. And does it have a a fixed set of range from where you build the base to the resource/artifact ?. i also dont really know where to place my bases if it has any kind of strategic importance at all ?.
Welcome new guy. Lots of good questions so I will try to give you some good answers:
Initially it is a good idea to start researching in to top tech tab. The green one. Usually called something along the lines of "Expansion", depends on your race what exactly it is called. This one gives you the techs that help grow your colonies, so gives you the early boost you need to expand your research, production, etc. The second tech tab from the top is also important, usually called "Engineering" or something like that. The orange tab. This one gives you techs that make your ships bigger, faster, longer range; which helps you expand out to colonize new worlds faster. All of the tech trees have important things that you will want/need, but I would recommend starting with those top 2. You will learn ways that fit your particular style with some practice.
Yes the mining resources are used for making special weapons and such for your ships later on. The artifacts give you civilization wide bonuses (they help ALL of your planets with whatever the resource says it is for). And yes there is a fixed range from your starbase you build where it is able to harvest the resource. When you have a constructor selected, that ring you see around it is the effective range for any starbase you build at that constructors location. You can also build Economy starbases which can give bonuses to any of your planets within their radius.
I hope you can understand what I was saying. Busy stuffing my face with pizza so not sure I was making well articulated points 
