Welcome. Lets start off with what this guide is not:

-an explanation of factions or the game itself.
-a walk-through.

You've played games before and there is no use in spoiling your joy of discovery since Elex has a lot to discover. There is a reason why I am focusing on the sand-box elements of this mission-based plot-driven game. It's not that the story is bad. In fact Elex offers a nuanced world, deep back-story, decent plot and lots of good voice-acting. What makes the game stand out is that you can avoid the plot and play the game as a pure sandbox. If this idea appeals to you, I'm here to tell you that it is possible to do so in Magalan (name of this planet).

Why? Because you can and most games make it impossible. So, that's it in a nutshell; you don't have to get all rules-y with yourself...go ahead and take missions, just don't feel compelled to. Now if you do try to put off the plot... time will still pass and things will happen without you, so if you intend to play a plot-game I would advise to start a new game from scratch.

What follows is for brave explorers only. There will be some spoilers but I will keep them to a minimum.

What you need to know: (spoilers)

The game begins with a predictable set-up: Shipwrecked.

[aside:The plot unfolds in chapters and there is one event that you will need to resolve in chapter-1: The Abessa-conflict. There is a domed city where the factions are struggling for control. It is one of the only time-sensitive events in the whole game so I wanted to give you a heads-up.]

You start off very vulnerable in a super hostile environment. Don't get full of yourself. Explore your first area carefully before taking 'the elevator'. You will do a lot of looting in this game and there is no encumbrance or ammo-limits, so fill your boots. Collect all plants you find and look for loot in logical places. The Devs did a great job of providing (sometimes amusing) sub-text to the world of Magalan so exploring is almost always rewarded. To speed things along I'll give my bullet-points of wisdom gleaned from two play-troughs:

-First and foremost: Run! Evade. Sprint. Until you get some armour you are going to be a quick snack for most mobs. Until you meet leaders in cities their factions may attack you as an 'outsider'. While sprinting you can out-run everything so use your jump, get some air, climb a cliff and run.
-Talk to people. Often living people are much more useful to you than looted corpses.
-Collect everything. Each mundane item is worth at least one "shard" (of money) Good items and ammo will cost money later on.
-Sell nothing. Never sell ammo and never plants, in fact most items have crafting uses that are very valuable yet will only net you a couple shards so: keep it in your inventory.
-Explore. There is ton of mundane loot but scattered about but you will also find weapons and ammo. Everything you need can be looted. There are chests with a lock-picking mini-game and safes with a hacking mini-game. You may need to consult your skill-tree options and possibly even join a faction in order to be eligible for the training (lock-picking/hacking). Choose a faction according the skills you want to learn. Note: it will not be a requirement to progress the plot but joining a faction is a good short-cut to the the elusive: good-armour. Speaking of armour: it will not be just lying around. If it is be found by exploration (rather than purchased) it will be found in a chest or a safe. Sometime people may give you armour but only if you have a requisite skill-level in something. Bottom-line: armour is meant to be scarce.
-Armour: From the beginning you are told that good armour is a requirement for you to be "ready" for the final battles. Make getting (even crappy) armour a priority. Weapons will be easier to find so: if she doesn't find you well-protected, she aught to find ya deadly.
-Finish conversations: Many times you will need to complete a conversation path before you can unlock a character's plot-path/abilities. If you leave things hanging you could be stalled.

So...how do you want to play it?

If you want to go full Iron-man meet up with that Barbarian dude waiting at the bottom of the elevator but don'e feel obliged to follow him. (Note the elevator remains locked until you meet Duras). Once you have your mobility device and a couple of crude weapons you can literally book it and survive on your own. Chance-encounters will constantly bring you into the plot but you can do so at your own pace...organically. This path will tend to upset the chronology of the plot but if that does not bother you...you are now truly free. This leads to emergent game-play.

If you want get your foot in the door, go meet up with Duras and he will guide you to a nearby town so you can get established. You can branch out from there as you see fit. I mention the elevator for a reason. Before you leave the area you should ask yourself: is there any high-tech loot lying around that I know of for sure...hmmmmm

Trust your judgement. If it looks big and mean: avoid it. If it is small, you might be able to hunt it. Everybody has to eat and most things can one-shot you so be careful.

Travel: By foot. No vehicles. There a pathways everywhere and the remnants of old highways. These are a good place to start. When you walk over new tele-porters they get added to your network automatically allowing fast-travel around the world. Try to clear out the area before moving on so you don't get jumped as soon as you beam back to this location. Note: that will happen anyway as the mobs re-spawn after chapter-changes. Expanding your network will make travel and mission go smoother.

Sneak to do pickpocket-ting (skill required).
Walk to look cool.
Run to survive while exploring. (expends stamina)
Dodge to avoid charging melee attacks, save on health-potions, avoid snipes.
Flee to escape enemies you should not have pi$$ed off.

Don't feel bad: with level-3 upgraded weapons and some armour you can come back later and will be eating their lunch and looking good while doing it. Both sprinting and the jet-pack have energy-pools so alternate their use for maximum mobility.

Hunting: This can be the fuel for your entire economy. Killing critters gives experience for RPG progression and looting enemies can either fund your trading or fuel your crafting. I highly recommend maxing out on 'animal trophies' because the loot you get will make you rich.

Wandering off the plot-path will put you up against bosses so big you have no hope of winning so avoid them & go for the low-hanging fruit. That will sustain you until you are a threat.

-Basic weapons: you are lunch.
-Level-one weapons. You may live if you have good judgement and skilled timing.
-Level-two DOT: I hope you can dance.
-Level two range-weapons: know when to switch to melee.
-Level three upgraded weapons: "it will keeeel"

Ranged weapons need dexterity and are good if you have a tough companion to absorb agro. Melee fighting will be forced on you as soon as melee combatants get close to you.Switch before they reach you and parry a lot until your armour improves. Know your enemy and you will predict their attacks, most mobs have 'tells'. [Bone broth is your friend.]

In addition to level-three upgraded weapons there are many legendary weapons to be found. (One of each type) They have names and are all deadly. LWs have a gem-stone slot as well for buffs (more on gems later) but don't get too excited: possessing a legendary weapon is not the same as having the stats to wield it. If it is a class-weapon you intend to use; save it for later. If you never plan to carry it; sell it for massive profit.

Once you have basic armour and level-1 weapons you are ready to do serious tomb-raiding as long as you avoid unnecessary conflict. You'll want to have some level-2 gear before risking fighting medium-sized mobs. You can find all levels of weapons and cheaper armour but without some risk don't expect much reward. There is excellent loot in the dangerous, infested areas...just follow the trail of adventurer-corpses to the treasure. That how you get stronger. The devs made sure to reward earnest explorers with hilarious notes, detailed ruins and a bag-of-gold at the top of that obviously platformed-tower. That's why this style of play works.

You will find yourself completing missions that you didn't even know existed, and getting the pay-out too. This makes for an emergent unfolding of events. Most characters lie to you or give you a biased account of things anyway so it's a good idea to find out for yourself what the real deal is.

Any ruins from the "old world" will have loot worth exploring for and the more dangerous the area the better the loot. Look for platforming mini-games with a loot pay-day at the the end, they are everywhere. The end of roads, the top of towers...mountains? ...ruined buildings... loot is well hidden (as in: interesting) and there Easter-eggs galore. Read notes for experience before selling...sometimes they have clues, plot-points or safe-codes. Search in the watch-tower...on top of the watch-tower. Some of the best set-decorating I have seen yet, they really had some fun with it. Does the radio bug you?: turn it off. Does that dude's heavy breathing distract you while you are trying to craft?: go draw a sword on him...he'll get the hint. The game has flaws but it's mostly a gem.

This is where the accelerator element of my guide comes in. I will not explain the entire game but rather focus on one example of a character path that I found profitable: Hunter/craftsman. Having played once through the plot I proposed to try a game where I maximised the free-roaming elements and did not focus on the plot until my stats were in a position to capitalise on the skill-trees to to maximum degree.

The idea here is to upgrade certain skills first so that leveling-up and killing foes garner the greatest rewards in experience (the primary resource) and currency (shards,cigarettes, scrap etc). This is not a "head-start" so much as way to get momentum in the early mid-game and keep it.

Progression: With the exception of the Abessa-conflict (time sensitive) most plot developments are driven by your faction affiliation, armour-level and certain main-missions. If you want to hold back the reigns on plot-progression, stall the "big offensive" until you are good and ready, avoid heavy armour (light or medium are OK) and don't be in any hurry to get rid of every last Alb-converter.

Your personal progression is driven by experience (missions/dead enemies). Each level gives you ten attribute points to buff your stats with and usually one skill point to learn a skill that you have the stats for. This guide is focused of getting you the maximum attribute-points possible by the end of the plot. You should get to about level 40 by this time regardless of your attribute point-count.

The big idea: the world is pacified as you kill off nasty mobs but many will re-spawn on chapter-changes so lets maximise your kills (exp) and loot. Once you have certain skills your rewards will be buffed for the remainder of your game. The cool thing about Elix is that they let you see the entire skill-tree(s) on day-one so you can explore and plan your future development and see what attributes you will need to qualify. These are the skills that my choice of Hunter/craftsman required:

-Attribute. Always a high-priority: each new level-up will give you one extra attribute-point to spend.
-Experienced hunter (Buffs exp for critter-kills)
-Animal trophies (3). Each point you put towards this will increase the types/amount of loot you get from each corpse. Un-looted corpses do not de-rez so save the corpses for looting when you have a higher level of animal trophies. [If you are in a remote area: don't wait.]
-Ranged weapons. Best to specialise either ranged or melee. You will do both but hunting is best done at range so:buff-it (ranged weapons,mutant-killer)
-Good eater. Food heals you at a rate that actually helps. Good for hunters (potions are expensive). Also, get recipes for value-added food-items (worth stealing/buying).

These are optional skills for Hunter/Craftsman:

-Create ammunition. (Optional because it requires commitment to the Outlaw faction) This out-law skill allows you to make ammunition from scratch and upgrade-ammunition using things like tape, teeth, claws, grenades, nuggets, scrap etc) This is why you don't sell anything! If you go for this speciality you will want buy a lot of spare tape, iron ore, sulphur nuggets. Mining is a useless skill so just buy your ore.
-Low tech weapon-smith. Faction specific skill that allows you to upgrade certain weapons at a workbench. Not to be confused with Gem-stone socket skill (that lets you add a socket to certain types of weapons for gem-buffs.) If you don't want to spent points on this path fear not: upgraded weapons can be found and purchased too.
-Unscrew. Yes you need training to take that thing apart. This is great if you want to specialise on certain types of weapons then sell the rest (or salvage using Unscrew). May give valuable resources like natural Elix. Serious shards can be had; sometimes by sale and sometimes it's better to salvage...there is no standard rule.
-Friend of beasts. (amulet available for this too) Lowers agro for smaller critters making them less likely to swarm you in packs and easier prey. *Amulet is better: it toggles. This gives you more control over engagements and mob-agro.
-Chemistry. You will have a lot of time to pick flowers in the wild so you might as well brew up some potions. Also stock up on liquor, wine and water (20 each) for this crafting.

Be very thoughtful when spending your next Att-points. Choose the attributes based on what you need now for your skill-progression. Dex cunning and intelligence will matter for this class. If you wanted to play a melee-brick you would go for constitution and strength. Constitution is needed for armour and shields as well as the heavy hammers/axes.

Hunter weapons: My favourite was the spear-gun or the weaker harpoon-gun. This type of weapon offers you three shots in fairly quick succession compared to bows, crossbows and plasma (before it reloads). Heavy weapons have a slow rate-of-fire and preclude the jet-pack so not really a good fit. Lasers have a decent rate-of-fire but they just give gas to some mobs so you won't be able to rely on just one type of weapon. Mobs have some weakness to certain ammo-types and also have invulnerability to certain ammo types. It's pretty logical: creatures that live near lava may be immune to fire-damage for example.

Melee weapons. Most engagements will end up in melee unless you are very cautious and good at threat-assessment. Hunters have low-str/con so heavy axes are less effective than quick swords. In fact: maybe don't upgrade that sword just yet, even if you have the stats to wield the up-grade. Swords that do more damage also use more stamina to wield so you get winded before you can finish your opponent. In Elex each melee blow in a combo gains more damage so a light sword allows a whirl-wind of blows, successively stronger. Take advantage of gem-buffs that trigger on blows.

Gem-stones: OK. what about these gem-stones? Collect them. Use them to buff you and your companions. They are interchangeable at workbenches and non-permanent. You upgrade four smaller gem-stones into one bigger gemstone and triple it's effect. You can learn a skill to make sockets in certain weapons to allow a gem-stone (or two) to be added. Your adjutor (wrist-computer) has three slots for gem-stones that will buff you or your companions. If you pop a gem-stone into a weapon that has a socket that weapon will buff or nerf as it rains blows upon your enemies. Read the fine print and use wisely.

General guidelines:
-Don't forget that regardless of whether you choose a faction or go faction-less you can still lead the free-people and you are still an Alb-soldier. This means you can use all Alb-technology so save those looted Alb-pods and use them like any other item.
-Elex-potions.: These are craft-able ways to buff your att-points or to get extra skill-points. The basic limiting-commodity here is natural-elex which can be purchased at some vendors and found on the ground. Using elex-potions make your character "cold" on the emotional-scale but this aspect of the game seems un-important and under-developed. There will be plot-options that require emotions and some others that require coldness. Not a crucial trait so play it as you see fit. If you go "Alb" in your arc you will end up more cold.
-If you went Outlaw-faction you will be able to make ammunition and learn to pick pockets. This can prevent you from buying things like a chump. Do buy your favourite ammo, recipes & bottleneck-ingredients.

Also useful:
-Extra hit-points.
-Practitioner (X-tra mission Exp)
-Stamina: Find the rare, golden whisper then make an elixir to increase your stamina. Melee & running use up stamina so buff it.
-Advocate: if you are not a very good thief.
-'Loot-glasses' (normal-items)...my favourite glasses in the game.

Skip this section if you prefer to be surprised.

The troll-mage will give you free clothes if your have survival-3 or higher when you first meet her.

You'll want survival-10 before Scrappy will give you everything you want.

Seek out the teleporter at the domed city. There is just one set of linked teleporters in the game and this is one. When you discover this pad it will automatically link the pad at the Hort to your network. This will save a long walk to the Hort. (So will allowing yourself to be shanghied by a cleric press-gang working the wilderness.)

You'll want combat-20 before the big offensive...and most of the Alb-converters eliminated...i think...or something bad might happen to Obreict...maybe...I don't know. I messed up things here and there. If one faction is happy another one might be annoyed. There are not always easy answers. Don't sweat it, it's just a game.

Forget about ever flying that damn jet, that's not what it's there for.

Those five cleric weapons are mission-items. You can sell them (limited time) to characters but not ever to a normal vendor and you'll never be able to scrap them for parts on the workbench. You can return them to the pit as per your mission or...
...you can keep one for you inventory. When you get the stats to wield it you'll find it a little bit better than the standard energy weapons. (cool)
However: that other mission item: the "defective" cleric weapon (different mission) is not worth it. Usable?: yes, but it does only token damage and you would struggle killing a rat with it.

Eli's hammer: great weapon if you are prepared to devote the atts to wielding it. Why? Two gem-sockets. Makes for a cool speciality-weapon. It takes rhythm and timing to wield but I tell ya:
jet-pack attacks with that hammer are a lot of fun. Note you will be able loot this hammer even if Eli goes down holding it...that is rare in this world as most people do not drop weapons or armour when killed.

Neat tricks that might save your life:

The Jetpack also hovers. With a ranged-weapon in hand you can perform a standard jet-pack jump but now, while you are in the air, right click you weapon. While hovering in iron-sights mode your fuel will last longer and you can snipe from the air while melee attackers pound sand.

If you run out of jet-pack fuel and are plummet-ting to certain death...mash the crouch key. All paratroopers are taught to bend their knees upon landing and this is modelled in the game. Crouching at the moment you hit the ground will reduce fall-damage and may prevent pancaking. This seems to work even better when sliding down a tower or mountainside.

Panic-mode. Using the right-click (iron-sights) will make you more accurate but it takes time. When you get attacked by a melee-mob while holding a ranged weapon you may be unable to return fire until you holster then redraw your weapon (kind of like a simulated weapon-jam with a quick fix). I discovered that if an enemy gets danger-close and you start to spaz-out in panic (mouse-button mashing) you end up in what I call panic-mode. I am not sure if you press both buttons or one then other or even if this was intended by the Devs but I often find myself at very close range looking through iron-sights...yet there was no animation; the transition was instant.

This is just one way to try to exploit the skill tree. I am impressed at how many ways the game developers provided for specialisation. For example: stealth is not a huge part of the game but it can be. Something that Elix does better is the rogue-scholar. If you are so inclined you could play a very talkative, charisma, personality-based character. There are great personality skills that help to accelerate a player who chose verbal-interactions to gain advantage. Many of your initial contacts with people will open a one-time only conversation option based on your combat-skill, survival skill etc. You must already have those stats in the proper range to get your reward so there is a definite pay-off to having a charisma-based character.

I think this game offers a lot for people who would like to explore a rich world with a history and some humour sprinkled in. The scenery is beautiful and the combat is skill-based not button-mashy.

Enjoy.