playing with increments

It takes time to get used to increment. Because of that, a newer player, or a player that rarely uses increment, can have a difficult time managing the clock.
Best to calculate what an incremented game is equivelent to if you wanted to have about the same time as a sudden death (non increment) game.
The rule of thumb is to use 60 moves as a standard game length. So multiply the increment by 60 and add that to the base time to get a rough equivelent to normal non-increment time control.
That will give you a starting point for clock management.
Once you get used to increment, you won't even think about it much as to the sudden death equivalent.

I played a few games. 2nd opponent smoked me lkke a cheap cigar. I got to rushing my moves at some point in the game. Lol. Not "omg opponent used an engine".

It easy to tell sometimes if it's a chess engine, especially it they're using Komodo or Stockfish, but more often than not, humans are clever and can find some interesting lines or combos.
I played a game earlier on a different chess server and made a very small error. The moment I moved, I was like.. "nuts, I'll have work just to pull off a draw". I got the draw. I managed to get the board into a near mutual zugzweng. Three fold repetition was the only option for both players. Any other move was game losing for each opponents.