Federation Commander

the same drone oriented race as we know them ?

Drones aren't a major threat in FC, so if FC have been the first game developped, would a race that extensively use drones have been approved ? would the Kzintis ship be the same as we have them now ?

What about other races ?

Well, considering that when the Kzinti were originally created, drones were speed 8 (and 12), not 20 or 24 or 42, I don't see why not.

But, regardless, this is a completely unanswerable question. All of the empires are like they are because of how they were developed and the game was developed and the time that they were all developed together. Would (for example), the LDR have been allowed using a modern perspective? Maybe. Maybe not. We just don't know and can't know. The question is unanswerable, and any answers given aren't worth anything.

Sorry.

Had Federation Commander been the first game, we would more likely have started with the Middle Years Ship Cards first, since they are set in the same era as the original series. (In SFB, concepts like refits, "war" classes, and the General War itself all came later; even now, Basic Set still starts you off with these founding ship types, including the Franz Joseph hulls; albeit with a number of refit options incorporated into the SSDs.)

It would be interesting to wonder what players' expectations of the game might have been had they started there instead of what we now refer to as the Main Era; would there have been the same gradual shift to the General War as the default setting, and might the ships and weapons of that period look different had they been designed from the ground up for this game engine, not for SFB?

Yes, the Kzintis would have been a drone using empire.