What would everyone consider a "well rounded party" of 4-5 PC's?

Edit: I'm also not implying every game should be run with a "well rounded party" and the ones who don't could even possibly be more enjoyable!

I will start off but first a disclaimer:

This is all subject to peoples views and opinions and some people may 100% disagree with me which is fine.

I think having a combat specialist, someone dedicated to picking up piloting skills, a party face and a tech of some sort. Add a 5th NPC of you choice.

Look forward to hearing (hopefully constructive) opinions!

Actually, I think the core rules cover that pretty well. Since there will be a good bit of overlap in skills based upon how they work with defaulting and all there is less need for strict specializations.

That said...

A face (social)

A protector (combat)

A techie (computer/mechanics)

A sneaky bastard (skull duggery) (maybe the face)

A leaf on the wind (pilot) (may be combined with one of the others)

The nice thing about open systems like this is that you can mix and match these roles. No one has to only focus on any one, although a lot of players want to be superlative at whatever they do.

Depends on the focus of your game. For example, my PC group (which, admittedly, has been in other games, not the new FFG iteration) breaks down like this:

Character 1: Ranged expert, back-up pilot

Character 2: Melee expert (Jedi)

Character 3: Balanced between melee and ranged; stealth expert

Character 4: Has varied (the jokes is that this character is like the drummer in Spinal Tap -- it's been 5 different characters while the other three have remained unchanged!), but has usually been a "face" character.

In general, I think a balanced group meets these criteria:

1) Each PC has a chance to excel at one thing

2) PCs don't step on one another's toes

3) All aspects of gameplay are covered (in a combat heavy game, it may not be necessary to have a "face" character, for example)

Considering that pretty much everything is attemptable even without skill training, it doesn't really seem to matter all that much in the beginning. Later when you need the big dice and special talents to succeed, you can always pick up the Specializations that get you where you now need to be. In this, the game is awesome.