I started playing this game last week as a gun-toting techie. It is a bit slow in the beginning and tricky for non-melee types. Unless you go the magic route it might be worth spending one point on explosives for the molotov cocktail, a very fast weapon that can be thrown without any skill (just pick it up if you drop it on the ground). My techie started with one point in melee, charisma, and dodge, then pumping up int with some points in perception and as many as possible into firearms. You can use potions and items like the eye gear to temporarily boost your perception when you level up, that allows you to increase your firearms skill so that you can seek out better trainers. NPCs did most of the fighting and I used a rapier until I got the repeater rifle. After that it was a breeze. I should have stopped focusing on int once I had reached the hand cannon schematic though.
Currently I alternate between hand cannon (for easy enemies while travelling), the mechanised gun (ultra fast gun that makes as much damage per shot as the hand cannon but uses 10 times the ammo), and the electrical Tesla gun (does as much damage as the elephant gun but is a bit faster). The latter two require found schematics and high firearms skills, and in the Tesla case high electrical skill too. When dealing with found schematics you can use the manuals from the university to get a temporary tech skill equal to your intelligence so there is not really much need to raise the skills to the max.
The hand cannon and the elephant gun can be found through quests.
Electrical lvl2 allows you to make charged rings that each increase your Dex by 2. This is beneficial in a lot of ways (more attacks per round, initiative, and allowing you to raise dex-based skills). Dex is a good thing to pump for all characters, but it seems like you cant go above your racial max even with extra equipment, so for a techie human with 2 charged rings there is no point to go above 16 in natural dex.
EDIT: Having Dog in the party as early and possible makes the game a lot easier. I'll try without him when I play a melee character...