HotPocket69
So when you get to 30, just focus on loot and getting your gearscore to 450. That usually means equipping the latest and best raw drops. I find it inefficient to start optimising that soon. So clear the strongholds and just run missions, control points etc. until you get to about 450. Buy up all blueprints from vendors, complete projects for blueprints etc.
Now you can start optimising properly. You have six piece of armour (mask, gloves, kneepads, chest, backpack and holster). These are branded with names (e.g. Petrov, Wyvern, 5.11 Tactical, Providence). Each branded set has a bonus - if you get 3 of the same, you get a set bonus. See this image - under Wyvern gear. For one piece you get +1% crit dmg, if you have two piece you also get drone skill power too.
I would suggest one set is providence just for the versatility and another that suits your playstyle. Not every item drops in every set so plan which you want to pursue. I chose Fenris as secondary because I use an AR. Here is a document where you can choose what brand you want in each slot (on brand sets tab)
Link
So as you're grinding you are now grinding for a Fenris kneepad for example. And that's not all. That's step one. Really you're grinding for a Fenris kneepad with 2 talents (the above image only has one - destructive). You can't add talent slots to items. Once you have your gear 'set', this is where it gets interesting. Now, you're looking for the same equipment type with the talents you want. These talents are purely your choice and can be looked up here (on the gear talents tab)
Link
Again in the above image, the kneepad has +explosive damage - this is no good if you're not an explosive class, or just don't use them. So you'd grind until you got a kneepad drop that had a talent you wanted from that sheet. Let's say 'Hard-hitting' (+15% dmg to elites). So what you'd do is go to the calibration station in the Base of Operations and choose to recalibrate your current kneepad talent. It would discard the +explosive damage and replace it with +dmg to elites. The item you are infusing the talent from would be consumed as part of the process. You see now why you want two talents on everything (for the bonuses). You ideally want to do this for every piece of equipment. You might choose different talents on each item to spread your stats.
Then you have mods. This si what the blueprints are for. First you need to upgrade your workbench. If you're on PS4 you just go to the crafting station and at the bottom it will say upgrade station and you have to hold square to be able to craft higher quality items. Now you can go into the subcategories and craft those mods (this is what you use the loot and consumable for in the real world). Go back to your menu and access your gear items and press square - you can now put these mods into the gear which also add bonuses - look at gear mods here:
https://www.gamerevolution.com/guid...-what-are-weapon-skill-and-gear-mods#/slide/1
Now that you know the above - you do exactly the same with the weapons. The idea being that through this process you end up with a tuned setup that can melt elites, facetank or be a crit machine. Also note, this tuning will depend heavily on whether you do PvP or PvE so that's why people tend to have one char for each.