New to ADK; some basic questions

I have been modding and making games for a while and am experienced with C++, Java and a few scripting languages, but am entirely new to the ADK. I am fairly familiar with the concepts the UE4 engine uses for scripting.

So, the tutorials for the ADK seem to be in two types: bad, and utterly worthless - both of them also outdated.

1: What are the most up-to-date, complete tutorials that are not useless mumbling videos that show you what to copy without explaining anything?

2: Are there any good tutorials on best practices and clean modding?

And, what exactly are the functional differences between a mod, a map, a TC, and an extension? what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

I want to make a large mod that will adjust stats and behavior for various creatures, without needing to make new types of creature and respawn everything (it could just be dropped into a server, works with other mods, ect) - would this require a TC, or is it possible with a ‘core data’ mod (or is a core data mod just a different name for a TC?).

Look on the forums here. ZenRowe has been releasing new tutorials for the ADK. Im not sure exactly what you want to do but you can change a lot of that stuff just in the server settings file. You can adjust all dinos and each one seperatly. No need to mod. For dino behavior, you would need to remake all the dinos you wanted to change. Afaik.