Struggling in Trove! (Cannot believe I'm posting this!)

Greetings Redditors and Trovians!

Long time lurker, first time poster. A quick note about myself - an avid video gamer since 1996, I favor MMOs and 4X Strategy games. Back in the day, there was a lot of time to play - now with the family, time is limited. By no means am I a pro, but by no means am I a scrub - I've ten years of WoW under my belt, led some guilds, maintanked some end game content, had some ladder placements in D3, and even a bit of competitive SC2 in the early days.

Two weeks ago, I discovered Trove and loved it! A perfect game for me to play alone and sometimes with my five year old.

One big problem! I seem to be struggling (which I never thought I'd say about any video game). The people around me appear to have 10s of thousands of flux, while I cannot seem to scrape enough to upgrade my equipment beyond Shadow 2! (I got lucky and a rare ally dropped which I was able to cash in for 6k flux.) I'm trying not to "pay to win" by purchasing items at the store, but I'm certainly a bit tempted. (Must resist, however...)

I read a lot about challenges (I'm mastery 26, so I'll be able to do those soon), but I know I won't be able to do any u5-6 content until I equip at least one of my guys reasonably well. I thus ask the community for advice. Are there any tips or tricks for gathering flux and gear? Do I need to just play more (I'm guessing the answer here is yes)? I feel like there is a piece in the puzzle that's missing. Love the game, would love to play more, resisting "pay to win", please help with advice!

My ingame name is "Odd_ball".

Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

Edit: P.S.: If there are active clubs that are looking for new but active members, I would be honored to join as well.