I am wondering what sort of roles/jobs/skill specializations are good for new players? Something I'd love to play is something that is in high demand or useful to other players, and I have humored the idea of doing a doctor type for that reason, but I am unsure and open to feedback!
That said, having a job isn't going to necessarily create meaningful opportunities for you. I've seen skill-less guttersnipes finesse there way into chyen and well-situated chummers squander there worth.
If you want something high-demand - it is probably best to go with bare-bones transactional experiences. A Medic or Cab Driver are two great examples of these but there are a ton of jobs constantly being requested. Some of them don't even require a particular skill set. After listening to SIC for a little bit, you will get a better feel for supply and demand in the job market.
As a new player, I recommend focusing on meaningful interaction by exploiting what might be otherwise transactional in these roles and jobs. That is where the magic happens.
However there are several characters in-game whose job it is to help new players learn about the game and give them guidance, so that's probably the best place to start.
The best thing you can offer as a new player is not skills, but engagement and roleplay. Your interactions with other players are going to be much more relevant to them than whatever you spent UE on.
Aside from some skill pitfalls, I would recommend chosing an archetype that interests you personally, rather than one that might be strictly more powerful or flexible. It's really common for characters to be fairly diversified in their skills, so you're not locked into doing or being good at just one thing.
I'd use my skills without a job but I don't know how or whether I need equipment since the help files don't say. I thought if I got a job that needed the relevant skill it would be explained or something.
Some of those jobs might not be available to players or up to date, but that list gives you a decent notion of possible jobs inside the game that your character might want to pursue.
But like it was already mentioned the best information can be found inside the game.
My advice would be, don't get too attached to you first few characters and instead use them to gain game world experience over a few months.
Hopefully you won't walk into the usual newbie pitfalls but its all part of the learning experience.
Also please read thoughtfully @rules, @newbie, help files, video tutorials, etc. There are plentiful resources for new players which usually aren't taken advantage off.
Only three of them would be accessible to new characters (and are not necessarily open at the moment), and most of them don't exist at all.
You're only going to find accurate and up-to-date job information IC.
This isn't really limited to just newbies too. I've been around this one time where staff just destroyed an entire moneymaking enterprise because they felt things were being too consistent and easy.
Don't feel discouraged if you feel unemployed as a newbie. I think everyone, even the biggest, baddest solos, have to spend some time jobless here and there.
Raise your hand if you've tried to pull a new player into a plot, or give them some work that would act as a launchpad for RP, and they responded with some variety of... "Uh. Yeah. Maybe if I have time after I run my crates."
YMMV.
All of that said, what I am now finding challenging is fitting my initial character concept to the setting, and finding my character isn't super desirable or employable, etc. It's just a bummer and I would have very much loved to have seen the content in Surviving Whitmore available before I made my character or the like so that I could have planned better. It's not a big deal, I'll just know better when I make my next character!
Just roll with it, get into what interests you OOCly so that you won't find yourself bored to tears a few weeks into a career, and have fun RPing!
The last time some of those NLM jobs were advertised was seven years ago, I suspect some of them are defunct.
I wonder if it's because there's no enough population topside to warrant it, or some other reason. I wouldn't think NeoTrans exported/created enough content to merit it being playable, but someone with more perspective may correct me.
https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/grid-3.0-worth-the-wait--1627/
https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/game-problems/deckers-on-sindome-334/
https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/official--grid-3.0-feature-requests-1235/
