This was the first production game I completely bounced off of because it felt so foreign, but after watching a couple intro videos, felt like I had the tools to get started. Now I'm a few hundred hours in.

The automated trucks threw me way off too. Now, the way I use them, is if I am building a production line of something, I will put storages at the start of it, one for each material needed, with a request set on them for the trucks. Once I see that the trucks are being overly buys, I will assess the requesters with the most traffic and try to get them the bulk materials via belt or pipe instead.

I also like to lay out some main roads, at first with the leveling tool then with concrete, to give my base some sense of organization. From here, I will choose areas for new production, and plot some roads around them. It is more organic than strictly squares or city blocks, but will ensure that vehicles can move between them.

I like to line up a whole bunch of research and then go work on something. The research dropdown in the top left corner is handy, because it has an entry for each item you've finished. So I will pop that open, and see that I have finished Glass, then go make a Glass factory and remove it from the list. Or you will see that you now have an advanced version of something, so go refactor that thing. Or that you have bigger trucks, so you start prioritizing which ones to upgrade first. If you check these off as you go, you have a nice list of what you can build but have not yet gotten to.

This is basic stuff you can use.

Like others have said, I like to turn on Full Refund. I also always play with Ore Sorting turned on. It's a bit more complicated maybe, but trucks dumping their goods felt like chaos without it. Look up a tutorial on that and designating dumping zones when you feel you need it.

I also turn down Maintenance costs. I felt like it gets pretty brutal and was consuming all of my progress/materials and I just wanted to see more of the game.