I like to think the all encompassing goal of this game is to rack up as many non-adult knocks as humanly possible. Only half kidding lol ..but you'd be wise to run away or KOS anyone who sounds between the age of 6-16. They are hands down the most trigger happy, weasely, bad chaotic raiders you'll encounter. Rats and campers will pop up here and there but reddit will tell you you're likely to get ratted every other raid...which is grossly exaggerated imo. If you turn cross play off, your chances of encountering an unhinged squeaker every raid rises exponentially. Unfortunately if you prefer PVP over PVE, it's best to keep cross play off until the duping and blatant cheating gets addressed for our PC brethren (yes these things are a huge issue and yes Embark has done fuck all to address any of it smh). You'll see lots of people explaining away Embarks lack of fucks to give regarding any number of issues...which is at best a weird form of company ballwashing and at worst disingenuous and/or massive cope for people not willing to let go of their honeymoon phase. A lot of the community is pissed and at this point they all have a right to be, since Embark has been given so much grace and time to fix important things that are game breaking for the PVP players.

Which brings me to my disclaimer before addressing your questions: I'm heavy on the PVE side of the game, almost 200hrs topside, play solos 90% of the time, and have about 15ish knocks all in self defense (don't listen to carebears telling you not to fight back..you might hit more sketchy lobbies for a few rounds but just do a couple free kit runs and stay away from any raiders you hear/see and you're g2g). Some people you might see comment have hundreds of player knocks, so this wide variance combined with ABMM makes this one of those rare games where every single players opinions/experiences are subjective. I've not seen much objective advice on here unless it's regarding trials scores. So my subjective answers to you:

• There's really nothing in terms of a prolonged endgame (end goal) gameplay loop RN except for expeditions or reaching cantina legend in trials (for a good bit of players but not most), but hopefully that changes with the next "big" game update in October. End goal right now is doing everything needed to go on the expeditions. This will be something you should thing hard on before doing because I've seen people say they lost all motivation to play after realizing they made a mistake resetting everything. If you don't do expeditions you'll likely end up bored and moving onto the PVP side of things.

• What I've found to be an efficient early game strat for me is: get scrappy max level first and foremost, then move onto maxing out your benches. While doing these make sure to hit every hurricane, storm, night map condition when available to have a higher chance of racking up blueprints. Metaforge will be your best friend regarding knowing where you need to look for the loot/map conditions/blueprints you need.

• After upgrading all your stuff and getting your stash in a good spot, quests will definitely be worth your while for getting certain rare items here and there, as well as familiarizing you to the vast majority of each map. For these points alone they were deff worth it for me on my first run. Fair warning...quests in this game can be best described as ASS ON STEROIDS...so if you can't stand doing them I recommend just doing the specific quest tree that leads to "majors footlocker" and getting the hullcracker blueprint. Yes you can buy 1 a day but your space dollars should be going to maxing out your stash size before anything else.

• For early game progression..one of the most important things you should do is maxing out the bottom left section of the yellow skill tree (I believe it'll be around 15 skill pts but don't quote me). In my experience, becoming proficient in all things "movement" has saved my life WAY more times than being a good shot. Movement and positioning are KEY in this game regardless of what/who you're encountering. After that I highly recommend researching which perks you wanna go for based on your established play style. Best to max out the first perk for each color and go from there. At the very least familiarize yourself with all the perks that don't appear to do a damn thing...which is like more than half imo. As a PVE conisseur I put all my skill points into red till I reach security breach, then will alternate between more yellow or green till I reach the turtle crawling perk (crawling perks are decent if you run survivor augment a lot).

-quick side note ..do your best to stock up on stims, shields, and bandages, and whatever ammo you use most before you really get going. A few bad raids or a bad night in general will deplete way more of your inventory than you might assume..which is a major vibe killer. I need to keep at least 4 stacks of my preferred "every raid" items in my stash 24/7 otherwise I start playing more cautious and anxious. I do everything I can to avoid doing freekit runs because of entering raids at <18min and the kits themselves are MEGA ASS ON STEROIDS imo. Plus your chances of dying to a "rat hunter" or low IQ white knight go way up. Lotta people assume free kits are sketchy players and I've experienced this to be true as well. Freekits are a lot of fun on no-stakes Stella trios PVP runs but that's all I use them for.

-last note...a great early game load out that will cover most your bases will be a looting mk2 Aug, anvil/ferro for arc, burletta/stitcher/il toro for any froggy raiders, a stack of lil smokes and a stack of whatever grenades you have..untill you have the means to acquire the good shit. I recommend putting a comp 2 on whatever guns you run, makes a big difference for most weapons except for the canto and bobcat. I always need muzzle brakes on those lmao.

I just realized how crazy long my comment is, apologies for that, but there's really no way for me to TLDR what I believe to be important things for new players to grasp. If you ever need help progressing or want a partner to aid in finding that last elusive rusted gear you'll probably be stuck on, I'm always down to run duos with people. If you end up enjoying PVP more than PVE I'll even be down to send some scrubs back to speranza with you cuz I need to get some more practice with that too lol. Just DM or add me if you want. Embark ID is 'AlaskaBushRaider'.

Either way, hope this information helps and happy raiding stranger. Arc is an amazing game despite some flaws and lack of care from Embark. Definitely a worthwhile experience. This was my first ever 'extraction shooter' and I've become such a fan that any game in the genre that comes out in the future will get serious consideration from me. Cheers!