[Marcus]

There is no question that Automatics is hands down the most efficient firearms fighting method. After all it gives you Machine Pistols for moments when conceal-ability is necessary. SMGs for solid street fighting,  and Assault Rifles for when all bets are off and its war in the streets time, assault rifle in particular are very broad category of weapon in 5th.  I don't really see advantage in switching out unless multi-weapons usage is core to the concept. If your trying Jack of All trades you already have more places to spend points then you can count. I'd advice keeping it Simple.

[RHat]

Which is why the advice is to take Longarms+Pistols or Automatics, rather than Automatics+anything.

[Marcus]

I'd go Automatics + Unarmed Personally. As Unarmed is the best back up weapon possible. If your going tech rout Bone Density Aug is cheap, gives you Body dice for damage tests and solid unarmed damage, and is mostly undetectable. It can't disarmed, and it pairs well with any fighting style.

[RHat]

I'd go Automatics + Unarmed Personally. As Unarmed is the best back up weapon possible. If your going tech rout Bone Density Aug is cheap, gives you Body dice for damage tests and solid unarmed damage, and is mostly undetectable. It can't disarmed, and it pairs well with any fighting style.

Which now moves us out of the scope, which has been Firearms skills.

[Marcus]

Which now moves us out of the scope, which has been Firearms skills.

I could be wrong but I don't think he is so much worried about firearm skills as effective die pools.

[TheKT]

I'd go Automatics + Unarmed Personally. As Unarmed is the best back up weapon possible. If your going tech rout Bone Density Aug is cheap, gives you Body dice for damage tests and solid unarmed damage, and is mostly undetectable. It can't disarmed, and it pairs well with any fighting style.

Great idea, I already had Bone Density rating 2 and I only had 1 point in Unarmed, I've replaced pistols with unarmed. 

[Solarious]

I've been playing a sort of jack of all trades myself for a while now
I did go more for a character that tries to support the other specialists rather then be a one man ass kicking machine (except in the non-matrix tech skills- there he excels)

I know there is a lot to be said for them both positive and negative but my secret has been judicial use of skillwires.

They can be expensive but there is something to be said about being able to buy any (non-magical) skill you can imagine. This also has the added bonus of freeing up your karma expediture for other uses such as boosting your attributes, qualities, ect

Just make sure you start with good attributes and you can easily be the guy that suupresses the goon until someone with the ability to actual hurt him gets there and the guy that cracks the door when the decker is busy fighting IC and the guy that fixes up the broken gear and the medic and sneaking through the vents and...well, you get the point

Not all of the glory comes from being the guy running up the side of a building to karate chop a corpsec guard in half

I went with...
A-attributes
B- Ork
C- resources
D- skills
E- magic

That was more for RP reasons though as I wanted to start with a poor, unskilled character with a lot of potential
You could easily make him human and push skills and resources up and still be pretty lucky for when you need edge to push those non-wired skills

[Hibiki54]

Being a Jack of all Trades is actually a poor choice when joining an already established or well-rounded group. I'm not trying to say it is a wrong choice, but read below to see my explanation.

I'm assuming that your group consist of four players as a Tank/Combat Specialist, Decker/Tech Guy, Mage/Shaman and a Face. Some of them may cross into other categories. For example, if the Tank/Combat Specialist is an adept, he may also be good at infiltration and picking locks. Your Decker deals with Matrix stuff, but also knows first aid to support post combat. Your Tech Guy/Rigger works well with machinery and computers but is also the driver and has his drones for combat, but he can also do some skills in medicine, first aid. Your Mage/Shaman can go into two secondary paths depending if they took higher skills. A Shaman can double as a face depending on the build. A hermetic can double as doctor and surgeon, and possibly as a Tech Guy should they wish to adventure into strange builds. The Face is usually in a tough spot since most of their skills will focus on Etiquette, Con and possibly the Stealth groups. But a good face will always have something to provide for the team besides good looks and a silver tongue. Most faces will have decent agility for B&E or may have magic to bring to the table, which just opens the door for them.

Here are a couple examples of a Group of 5, with 5 being the wild card player:

1) Street Sam / Tank
2) Decker / Tech Guy
3) Combat Hermetic Mage (Medic skills)
4) Face / Mystic Adept (Support Magic)
5) Infiltration / B&E - There is a lot of overlap in the magic and technical skill department. While they have someone to tank and two people capable of healing, they need someone with B&E skills such as stealth, gymnastics and so forth. This person can also double as a ranged shooter since they would have a high agility. Even with spells like improved invisibility, there is still a limitation where the mundane needs to infiltrate to get in. So someone with shooting skills and B&E would be ideal

Example 2:

1) Adept Sniper / B&E
2) Technomancer (Decknomancer)
3) Rigger (Drone and Driver)
4) Shaman / Face (Spirit focused)
5) Street Sam / Bounty Hunter - This group mainly uses spirits to "tank" for them, so showing up with Street Sam that can take punishment and dish it out would make them more well rounded. The Sniper will hardly be in direct combat and the Rigger's drones should be more for suppression and watching the Street Sam and Shaman's back. The group could also use a survivalist and someone focused on the navigation group and perception would be vital when situations arise.