there is some good info from the official forums, here is a link to the Soldier profession
Boot Camp (Soldier) - Anarchy Online Bulletin Board
Meta-Physicist
, Bureaucrat , and Engineer's are the only class(s) that have pets.
Some armors you can level them up, Like the Living Cyborg armor, which is great for starting levels, and some of the pieces are quest reward, the rest you need to get as loot from mob drops in the subway. Some weapons and Armor can be upgraded, pretty much best armor and easiest to get if you know someone with the trade skill to make it, is the carbonum Armor.
If your playing on a Free subscription, your going to be limited to what armor and weapons you can use, The RK/NW subscription (AKA Froob account) does limit what is available, There are some great items but they are rare to get. If you Have a SL Subscription (AKA Sloob or ShadowLands Account) you will have access to some better armor and weapons, and some more Nano Programs.
You will just have to buy better weapons as you level or mission for them.
Traveling . .Yalms are great, but very spendy , Whom_pah's and the grid is your best way for traveling till you can afford to purchase one of the vehicle's. When doing missions, from the mission terminal , just select the missions in the city your in, this saves you time , since your not wasting it traveling.
To use the grid you need your Comp Lit to be 91, there are different levels in the grid, so your kinda limited to where you can go, but the grid is the best and fastest way to travel. Simple to use. just click on the grid access terminal and then your in the grid, find the spot you want to go and hop in that spot, then your out of the grid and where you wanted to go.
Fixers have their own grid, and basically can teleport your team, If they have the Nano program to do so.
On the implants . . They are just NPC food . . best to buy pre-made or mission for the implants, not till your ready for QL150 Implants , Pre-made is your best option. Combining them is a trade skill, and as a soldier your not going to place any IP into trade skills, not at low levels. I can not recall which Trade skill needs to have points added to combine clusters into Implants, I think it may be nano programing or something like that.
Only Trade skill I do add points to is Pharmaceutical , because you can get more credits from blood plasma, then from monster parts.
for example, I always leave noob island with half or m ore full of monster parts, those monster parts only gets you 4 creds when you sell to NPC, but turn them into Blood plasma (depending on QL you made) can be as much as 100 creds. you will need a
Auno.org - Item Database - Basic Bio-Comminutor
here are some links that could better answer you questions
A Guide for New Players - Anarchy Online Bulletin Board
this is old, but still good
Anarchy Arcanum - Your Rubi-Ka travelguide
and this should get you a better idea whats available, it really needs to be updated
Main Page - AOWiki
AO does not have the same learning curve as one needs in Eve. You should be able to pick up on this game pretty quick.
BTW which Server are you playing on ?