proguid
Collecting standard materials:
It is best to collect rss from level 1 and 2 resource(RSS) tile while completely depleting them it provides with higher chance of getting materials.
Since these tiles have small amount of RSS they take less time to deplete although the speed and amount of RSS gathered is small.
But in return it gives a large amount of standard materials in return, invaders layer are not that much profitable below level 5.
Hero:
After every upgrade of your hero you get full energy bar it is good practice to not gain any experience before depleting it specialy
for beginners.You should attack invaders.
Make a hero set according to your requirement and keep updating your hero set if it is for attack as it will save time when attacking.
Try to make gears(at least epic) for invader hunting as soon as possible as it will help in the long run.
Don't go haphazardly with hero skill tree first cap(complete all level) of same skill you require before moving to other as higher the level of skill higher will be the gain after upgrade.
Invader Hunting :
If you are buying packs from the bank then it is good hold of the energy before reaching level 5 invader in invader tree.While keeping all the knowledge above it at least level 9.As it will not only save your money it will also give a good chance of getting good materials from the the invaders.
If you are using free energy it is good practice to hunt in a group of 3 players especially for invader level 4 and above as it is difficult to hunt those invaders alone with free energy.
Always decide your plan for the gears which you want and hunt invaders according to it don't hunt randomly.