Lord_Kane... i would start with E4
Nah ok, i can't.
Then Frontier?
This would be my choice - it was my choice.
I guess "Elite" and "Elite Plus" differ as much to "Frontier" and "First Encounters" as they differ to Elite Dangerous.
In other terms, maybe the look of the Cobra MKIII is the only similarity.
Reading above to play "Elite Plus" to Elite ranking in 2:40h such is not to guess of for "Frontier" or "First Encounters", it takes month's to become Elite in "Frontier".
The rewarding for shot ships differs much, Frontier is sleek and you need to shoot countless enemies and points are little per shot craft, one and in very rare cases more as one then 255 of them are again one point which goes to the ranking score which doubles the needed points for each rank).
You aren't rewarded with points for nasty acting in Frontier (vice versa i would say).
Probably if one is patiently enough he can buy a heavy shielded Panther and wait on a photo or bombing mission for the hundreds of enemies to collide with you,
i haven't had the patience to be honest. Another problem is that you need to play quite long and have to finish countless missions to achieve a military rank which gets you in position for reconnaissance or bombing missions. So before you can do this you have to play very long, boring long for the start off delivery missions.
Honestly i never became "Elite" in Frontier in all those years, i always got bored long before, if you reached the rank for bombing missions which is close to the highest military ranking you are still only half way to become "Elite" by shot ships, it depends a little on how many you shot down of course.
For a little while you will pick up any little "Falcon" spread by a hidden military station, but after a while you will finish the mission and leave as soon as possible because even this gets boring after a while (usually i fly near to ground level to such a station so attackers will collide with the surface, after i laid my egg i leave as fast as i can not caring about the ships which are on my tail).
On the other hand i can reach "elite" in five minutes.... but that's not playing that's hacking.
Long text short sense,
Each "Elite" differs to the other and is worth to be played.
In my personal opinion "First Encounters" is the best of the previous released (Elite Dangerous i can't play), unlike FE2 it has a story which makes it more interesting to play as Frontier, achieving military ranks and elite is the same as for Frontier but it's no longer of much interest in First Encounters.
Your goal it the first encounter, the first contact with the Thargoids. It has many sub threads which are also fun to play and even can influence if you ever will encounter the Thargoids. In Frontier you form your character while playing, in Frontier itself you won't recognize this much but in FFE it can hinder you from certain things.
Being greedy and hunting for every credit isn't the way to win the game, being mamas beloved son and act like a boy scout will help a lot. Sure if you once played that story to the end it loses interest but then it's still to play like Frontier and you can still achieve elite (as grey
).
Finally as a tip, if you decide ever to play FFE sure play FFED3D but keep a original DOS version running, i noticed that in certain parts FFEWIN on which FFED3D is based can fail in the Thargoid missions, at least i had to use the original FFE for some things to finish. What exactly i can't remember it's quite a while ago since i played it through. But i know i stuck and when i loaded the save state to original FFE i could step further.
I guess it's a good decision to start with "Elite Plus", as it seems the game didn't consumes to much time.
After that you can still invest countless hours in First Encounters.
And you will, even when you follow the step by step guide which is known as "spoiler" (because it tells you how to decide).
A little bit of advertising at the very end;
I edited a couple of save states for Frontier, short sort of missions to complete, i think if one didn't likes to play the game for years this is a good alternative to just play an afternoon. Finish the mission(s) and you will be rewarded with a souped up ship but you can only keep it if you finished the mission. Each mission has a different goal, different ship and different skill.
I will open soon a thread about good old Frontier because after almost 25years of playing it with the wrong sounding music i finally can play it with the proper sounding music.
Thanks to the "Munt" (Roland MT32 emulation) project.
Honestly i had no idea and some will have recognized this already that i was in the complete dark about the MT32 and it's specialties.