I started this game about 4 hours ago and it said I had protection for over a week or until you're rank 20. I got attacked and had my ship disabled. So, where's this protection I heard about?

This protection only covers planets. So you can't attack/be attacked/invade/be invaded for planets only. For ship battles, there is no such protection from what I know.

In all of my time playing these games I have never heard of one where you can be attacked mere hours after you've started. I had no time whatsoever to prepare myself for any battles. It was very discouraging and should be fixed. I will no longer be playing this game.

Give the game time as it is still relatively new. You can try
1) Cloaking. Install those Devices -> Proximity Jammer
2) Use calming amplifier (though I doubt you will have this yet)

True, such beginner protection should also cover ship combats/raid/hacks. Hope the developer sees this and provide a solution.

While I agree there should also be ship protection, this would create a double-standard; think about it. The most combat probably happens between new players, since they're playing round with the game and seeing what all of the functions do. But if they also have protection, they could fight anyone and not have any repercussions from it.

So if protection is added, I would also suggest new players also get to have some form of simulated battle, where they can test the function from it without the risk of damage. This function would also be included in the ingame tutorial. Then, when the protection ends, the new players will know how to use the function, know about installing defences and weapons, and have hopefully actually done so too. It's that, or the combat function would simply be locked until protection has ended, but again players still might not know about weapons and defence by this time.

You're assuming that protection would persist if the new player attacked. IF the developer added this, I'm sure protection would end as soon as the player attacked another. It would be a nice feature but I don't really think it's needed. Almost every FB game out there has people killing each other from the beginning. Attacking and being attacked are part of learning any combat game. And this IS a combat game.

If there is going to be a limiter on combat during protection, make it so only beginners can attack or be attacked by beginners. That way, only those who are learning the game will give hits and be hit during protection. This does make it a crash-course in learning combat, but it is a good way that someone just as feeble is the one doing the attacking.

Or just make it simple, make new players immune to combat during the duration of the beginner protection. OR let them choose to be have ship protection or not. This will allow new players to have a choice and choosing combat would be at their own risk and they would be okay with disables so early in the game. (selection should be at the name typing area, or race choosing)

There is no need to let new players enter combat when they think they won't stand a chance and feel bad when they are disabled by some random player