my best guess is that the problem is the "ton of reasearch"... research is rather expencive... and takes a bit of time to pay itself off.

how many players are you playing with? AI? i assume? are the teams locked? or unlocked?

if teams are unlocked... the ai have a habit to gang up on the last human.

also... you dont have to kill all the militia to continue... I usasually leave the flacks, and build a gauss turret to take care of em, and move on.

colony capital ships (akkan, progen, and death egg) help you expand, and give you bonus! to your new colonies... very helpful.

if you do find your self on the defencive... build a starbase... the ai with throw themselves on your starbase getting themselves killed, and level up your capital ships... dont let your starbase die.  (if you cant build starbases, your doing something wrong... like not having entrencment... dont make that mistake either.)

Three planets (asteroids [other than the dead variety] are typically counted as planets) is a very tiny empire. 

On maps with few planets, you really do have to pinch every penny.  In these circumstances, you really need to avoid civic technologies like the plague.  Civic technologies can take upwards of 20 or 30 minutes to pay off for a large empire, and for a small one could take hours.  Pick technologies very sparingly and for tactical reasons.  In these situations, the only reason to get civic labs is so you can colonize ice or volcanic planets and then use them as military staging points.

If the map has more planets available, you really need to expand faster.  Capturing a new planet is way way way more profitable than putting up trade ports or buying economic technologies.  You should buy enough population upgrades to get out of underdevelopment (one upgrade for asteroids, two upgrades for all other types of planets), and also build all your extractors, but early game avoid trade ports and refineries.  Sometimes culture is worthwhile early on, but even then that's not a big deal.

For defense, use a combination of repair bays and medium tech-level units.  The long range frigate (Javelis, Assailant, Illuminator) makes a great backbone for any fleet, and if you combine it with the flak frigate (Garda, Sentinel, Defense Vessel) the AI won't be able to dislodge you with early game units alone.

Haha i was thinking about getting entrenchment but i don't have the mula for it.

I will definitly cut back on some of my research. I just do that so that my fleet is stronger and i can get more out of my crystal and metal factories.

Thanks for the help.

Oh and is any particular race better to start with than another or is it like a rock paper scissors deal?

You won't have any problems trying out the various factions.  You may have to pause the game every so often to search the tech tree for the technology you want, but you most of the staple stuff (repair bays, long range frigates, carriers, etc) are very similar between factions.

In THEORY it looks like Vasari counter Advent, seeing as Advent specialize in strong shields and Vasari specialize in bypassing shields completely.  However, in practice the sheer power of Advent wins through, so it's really an even match.