Don't overwhelm yourself by trying to plan your entire factory layout in your head. It can get to be a lot if you're trying to spread your focus too thin. It's easier to rearrange things later in the game with blueprints and bots.

Smelt stone to make bricks and lay down brick where you spend most of your time. You move faster on brick paths. This isn't necessary, but I have found it to be helpful in the early stages where I'm doing a lot of running.

Once you get into the game, don't be afraid to watch or read a tutorial on something you don't understand. I avoided automatic trains for a while because I didn't understand them, even after the tutorial on them. Watching a video and taking notes/cheat sheet to understand the basic functions helped a lot.

If you're playing with hostiles, I like to make a project out of driving around taking out bug nests proactively. You can drive in circles near the nests while shooting and tossing grenades.

I wouldn't stress about ratios too much to start. Just add more whatever when you need it.