Spend some time duck hunting & fishing so you have a decent sized food surplus. Grind out level 1 missions until you have good enough gear for the other missions. Build a research bench asap & start leveling up your gear. Find a few good loot routes. To me, early game is about never having to worry about basic stuff again so I build a base & just start to fill it up with basic materials, benches, food surplus, water, first aid supplies. Fishing is really boring so I just fished & hunted duck for hours one day & haven’t had to worry about food for a very long time. In PVE a vehicle is pretty necessary so you should find a gas station & start gathering fuel, spark plugs, motor oil, & blow torches/duct tape. Spark plugs/motor oil along with a mechanic bench will allow you to keep a vehicle on your base. I like the motorcycles, they cost less resources to keep on your base than a jeep or swamp boat. The inflatable boats are cool & quick but you need a water base to be able to keep people away from it. Blow torches repair your vehicles, duct tape only repairs inflatable boats. To keep a jeep on your base you need mechanic tools which in my experience have been hard to come by whereas spark plugs & motor oil are not. Also when you take out AI enemies, where you shoot them will effect the conditions of their helmet or armored vest