(New Players) Seeking advice from veteran players

Hi everyone, I'm hoping this can turn into a solid discussion that any and all newer players can come find some helpful advice.

Short intro: I picked up the game with several of my friends about two weeks ago now, enjoying everything this game has to offer. Like many newcomers to this subreddit, i felt extremely overwhelmed when i first started playing as there was so much to do and the beginning tutorial is fine for the basics but afterwards you feel like a minnow in the ocean. I was basically a day behind most of the rest of my friends and was pretty much focused only on grinding to catch up to them so i could level and play with them. We all agreed doing the black spirit quests was basically a must, but i quickly found myself annoyed as i was back tracking a lot to go places i was 10 or 15 levels ahead of now, this lead me to stop doing them for awhile. Also don't even get me started on all the other random side quests for contribution xp.... so many of those got ignored.

Now though, we're all together partially through 56 going for 57 anywhere from 15-30%, and we've been trying to catch up in all the other areas we ignored. Most of us have anywhere from 130-160 energy, 100-120 cp, and our stat lines are along the lines of 110-130 normal ap/ 110 awakened ap/ ~150-190 dp. the highest any of have any life skills are only in the "skilled" category with many of us still in apprentice in most categories.

The primary issue we are all having right now is trying to figure out what the f*** we should be doing with our time. The more geared of us have attempted to break into early Valencia stuff, pushing as far as the sand grain bazaar, doing Kasims(?) and Cadry ruins with more success than with Centaurus(they are so unbelievably fast its annoying, also at 180 ish dp, they do like 25-30% damage in one swing, im a squishy witch leave me alone).

For me personally, I'm sitting at 131 ap, duo krea staff, pri green aad sphera, and a 15 steel dagger(not enough sharps to go for pri yet), with 110ish awakened ap and 180ish dp now(most pieces are pri, with the black spirit quest chest piece). i know my accessories are what need the most work right now, pri bares pieces and a 0 bares belt.

I feel like i can do enough damage to kill stuff out in valencia, but if im not 100% on my game i can and have died( cadry ruins, i died like 3 times, went 100% to dead in an instant, was probably lag as it was middle of the day saturday).

So i think having clearly established a back ground picture, i can come to my questions and points of discussion. At this point, from what i've been reading, we should be trying for boss gear to get ourselves over the next big hurdle. The issue here is obviously cost. Even with all the grinding we've done and all the gifts we've gotten through log in bonuses and quest rewards, none of have more that 60-70mil in silver with net worth's somewhere in the 200mil range. Neither of those numbers is adequate for for more than one or two pieces at +0 and we'd be lucky as hell to snipe those with a pre-order let alone winning a bid on the marketplace now.

Now i know there's the 3 real types of income, Passive from workers on nodes(selling outright), Passively active(processing said materials, auto fishing, etc), and Active(going out and killing shit repeatedly in the hopes of good drops).

My issue with number one is the amount of CP i need to set up what i feel like is an ideal collection of nodes to work and link. As i said I'm around 125 cp right now and without checking my notes at home, i still need around 35 or 36 cp to finish out connecting heidel(my home) and altinova(for trade xp), getting the last housing i want for processing work shops in heidel, etc and the last few collection nodes that i want around Velia, heidel and calpheon. Contribution xp in early spots is pretty atrocious when i need 1000xp for each new point right now and i only get anywhere from 40 to 100 for most dailies. I've seen the videos with the calpheon routes doing those and the catfishmen and rhutum stuff, but i feel like that will take forever and i'd rather do the valencia stuff instead at 300xp a pop at a minimum.

Even if i were able to finish all of this in the next week, there is still the issue of my workers. I have over half of my workforce as blue workers chugging away with a upgrade test going constantly. my first 5 of 7 tests have all failed.... the two that passed were green to blue workers. I have spent probably over 1000 energy by now fishing for professional or artisinal workers. This works well in towns like Heidel where i am heavily invested and have a couple extra worker slots where i can hire them and wait for a node to finish up a work order and replace the worker there. however in towns like Velia where i don't have enough points or where its too much of an investment to get to those large lodging houses, i'm then stuck waiting for workers to get to twenty to take another test and that's 24 hours a node is not being worked.

So summing up this area, what are your best or preferred ways for grinding out CP's and how do you effectively manage and promote your workforce? how do you determine when you should just fire a worker and hire a new one?

Life skills are my next big area where i feel like there is no where near enough information. There are a few sites that i've found that i'm not sure are totally reliable when it comes to the information they contain. How do i know how much xp i need to level up to skilled and beyond. Where can i find out how much xp processing steel bars gets me vs doing copper ingots, or if something starts being better at skilled vs apprentice levels?

Also with regards to life skills, I'm really kind of annoyed that all the quests for leveling them as you go were all hidden initially and it wasn't until like 4 days after hitting 56 that i found out about them in the suggested quest tab, which is another thing i think a lot of people are unaware of. Hit O and hit suggested, it will save you a lot of pain in finding the next big chain of quests for the black spirit.

I understand that literally every aspect of the game is about the grind, my issue is im trying to find the most efficient and immediately rewarding version of that grind. i like to feel progress, i like to see myself getting better, i might just have to come to terms that it will take me awhile to get there, but i would like to try and get in a siege guild and start getting those fat paychecks and start having the sick and colorful pvp battles that i see on twitch and youtube. What are the best ways to get to that point?

Edit #1: formatted a little better to make my questions/discussions topics more visible, added tl;dr

TL:DR Put two solid weeks of effort in, friends and i all feel like were behind in all major aspects aside from being 56 - seeking advice for grinding CP, getting over the valencia gear hump and progressing to 150+ ap and 200+ dp while not screwing up our cash flow/reserves.