Confused about a couple of things

[RCIX]

I haven't had a chance to do much scouting in my games yet (maybe 10 planets on average), so i'm not sure what to consider high resource spots. Is 4 metal and 3 crystal good?

Also, the behavior of shields seem to be confusing. A warp gate took shots from like 100 bombers without taking damage but when i ordered my cruisers and fighters to join in, it fell in about 2 seconds. Can someone provide a detailed explanation of what shields are and do?

[Fiskbit]

4 metal and 3 crystal is good, yes. Homeworlds get more resources than other worlds, but for normal worlds, that's quite a lot of resources and may be worth taking.

Regarding shields, you can learn more from the Wiki here. Furthermore, some ships have bonuses against other ships. The amount of damage one ship does to another and the chance of the shot even hitting can be found in the tooltip of the enemy when you hover over it. Does that help?

[RCIX]

Mostly, though what's odd is that i think it showed 100 percent chance to hit for those bombers.

[Fiskbit]

I wonder if they fired too early (while still moving into 100% hit chance range). I'm convinced that ships do this sometimes, but I may be wrong.

[liq3]

I wonder if they fired too early (while still moving into 100% hit chance range). I'm convinced that ships do this sometimes, but I may be wrong.

They do, frequently. It's quite annoying. First shots are basically wasted.

[Fiskbit]

I've made a suggestion thread about this here. Feel free to add your thoughts if you have more to share on the matter.

[Huw]

I wonder if they fired too early (while still moving into 100% hit chance range). I'm convinced that ships do this sometimes, but I may be wrong.

Yeah, I'd agree that that's what's happening here.  In my experience bombers can easily take out warp gates.