New player just starting fleet arena...

the fleets you battle against in fleet arena are other people not the computers,
your daily quest is to do 1 battle. that means you dont have to win you can go into battle then retreat and still complete the daily.
ships power depends on pilot level as well as ship level.
there is also synergy between ships that can benefit you.
if you sign up to swgoh.gg and post your link here people will be able to give you advice on the best team to use at your current level.
there is also plenty of guides on this forum to tell you who to farm and when to use them.

Have you powered up the pilots at all?

I meant Fleet battle actually. Fleet arena is whatever.. I just have to play it once win or lose.. fleet battles I have to WIN three times.. and its clear the starter ships they gave me are not matching up to their decked out Heroic characters the AI are using in the very first starter quest. Talk about being new player unfriendly. Gotta sell those packs somehow though right? Even if its at the expense of the gameplay experience.

Some of the fleet battles can be pretty annoying. You need to have a good grasp of what synergies work to get far along in them. What is your current fleet? A good, simple synergy for fleet is to use Biggs along with someone who can target lock on basic like Vader or Imperial Tie Fighter because when you inflict target lock, it regenerates protection on Biggs AND forces him to taunt. His taunt/regen will keep everyone protected while your other ships do a number on the enemy team. That basic synergy should help you with the first few levels.

SN: Make sure you upgrade(gear, mod, upgrade abilities) the pilots that you are using since the ship's power is directly tied to the pilot's power. So if you are using Biggs ship, but Biggs the character is only level 20, gear 5, his ship won't do anything for you.

In fleet battles, repeating a battle - on auto or just simming it - satisfies the daily quest. The Stage 1 - Normal battle should actually be pretty easy to complete with one g6+ Jedi Consular and one other ship with a g6+ pilot. The rest of the ships can stay entirely unimproved for now.

So if you're level 60 and just starting ships, simply pick whichever fleet commander is your best geared (Tarkin, Mace Windu, or Ackbar) and give 60 levels plus some gear to Jedi Consular and one other pilot. That should be enough.