From the point of view as a player that wont Buy platinum etc for real money.
You only get one character for each account and only one single reset which takes your account back to point zero with nothing at the tutorial mission. So once a choice of Frame is made at the start, you are stuck with that choice. Personally I went with Excalibur for the Frame as it special abilities help more once you start getting to the Riot shielded enemies, which are a right pita to fight.
Platinum - don’t waste it, as it can only be obtained with real cash. You only get 50 at the start and I would recommend you only use it to buy one of each Orokin Catalyst the weapon upgrade and Orokin Reactor the Frame, each cost 20 platinum.
Orokin Reactor - Use it on the starter Frame once equipable, personally I made 2 accounts to try both and as above went with Excalibur
Orokin Catalyst - don't waste them on starter weapons as they can't be removed. You will want to change all your starter weapons once you have enough credits as the damage increase is dramatic. So once you buy a new weapon I would say upgrade the rifle with a Orokin Catalyst, as it will help adding more mods to them as it doubles the amount equip-able.
Mod farming - do the second mission you get a lot of times and you will get mods from it as rewards which makes a big difference to your survival having them.
Ranged Weapon level farming - the third mission in to do the extermination I have found the best to get the first few levels of a weapon to help equiping mods when you get a new one
Melee Weapon level farming - the first infestation mission you get, I use that to farm melee levels as I rarely use melee in normal missions but with the animals in that mission its a lot easier verses in normal missions with ranged enemies.
edit: and another
Mastery levels are gained from leveling weapons/frames, so don't make the same mistake and sell your old starter weapons before you get them to level 10, as you lose easy to gain Mastery xp which blocks access to higher grade weapons and frames. When you need 7-9k per low level of Mastery. Which you only get 100 for each level of a weapon and 200 per level of a frame.
FTTP 500 regrade from Tues 28th November
