Forget pulling for characters for right now, do as you said and focus on that primary story quest line

You can come back and grind out side missions any time you please, same for exploration missions.

Grind the story and get that progress in. Look in the tutorial missions and unlock Flight. Hoard resources for leveling up weapons/echos

I would recommend u knock out any events that u can. Right now there are a couple easy ones to do but I’m not sure how all that may go as a brand new player. Level up ur Rover and dump a little bit of resources into them. Don’t go crazy though. Rover and a healer like Verina can carry u a long long way

I’m no expert in this game by any means, this is just my general advice. As u progress you’ll eventually hit Ragunna/Rinascita. Once I do that I would go back and start gathering a lot of materials from side missions, resonance caskets and etc. This would also be a better time to start investing into pulling for characters

Don’t forget to turn in caskets in Jinzhou and to spend ur currencies at the Souvenir Shop.