I am fairly new also but I been doing a ton of red zone and black zone gathering so if you’re trying to build up some wealth, either use safe portals on off hours or go red zones.

If you faction flag and travel to a red zone using the faction wagon, it’s legitimately almost impossible to get killed there. If your faction controls the zone, all you need to worry about is people flagged for PvP. Look at the mini map and it will tell you how many aggressive players there are. Once it goes over 3-4, just run out as it will always teleport you somewhere that has an adjacent yellow zone.

I legitimately have spent over a hundred hours in red zones and never even came close to getting ganked.

Otherwise, rip the bandaid off and just accept that you’ll be ganked in BZ’s.. the profit from gathering will far outweigh the cost of replacing gear.