As of now I prefer skill sets. I have 3 which I believe is the max. One for mining, crafting + forging, and hunting. If I wanted to say add cooking I would need an alt. Lucky I do not play alone and the roles I have no room for can be done by who I play with.
Yes, exactly my point. Alts are great for people that like having them (I have all 10 myself), but they’re never really a must-have as long as you get involved in the community and try to meet people that can do the things that you don’t want to focus on.
I have a friend that never mines, so whenever that friend needs some plots cleared or some rocks in a specific color collected or whatever, I get a ping on discord 
On the other hand, whenever I need a specific color of gleam, they get a ping 
I didnt go with any armor/resistances on my miner. Just gotta be careful avoiding mobs. Shadow epic (decreases range mobs detect you) is really good for avoiding mobs but i dont think i got that until my 30s.
Personally i think a miner build is a good start. I would start off with points in power, dexterity, and all hammer skills, and damage epic. Luck is a good skill for getting extra drops but is better once you get decent damage output on your hammers. If you want to run faster i wouldnt put more than 4 points in agility until you get higher level. I also waited on this until later also though. To me damage and action speed are the best to put skills in early on.
Best thing is to play around with skills until level 20 to see what works for your playstyle
If your main does as many of the easy Journal Objectives as possible - especially setting up the first few crafting machines, you can easily start a “Crafting” alt who can complete the same Objectives in a few minutes by picking up and replacing all the same items when instructed by the Journal. You will then have enough points on that “stay at base” Crafting Alt to take Volume Crafting, Efficient Crafting and quite a few recipes.
You can then put all your main’s points into a Hunting build or a Miner/Gatherer build depending on what you like. And as others have said, it’s free to reset the skill page up until Level 20, so experiment.
Bear mind, a crafter still gets XPs crafting, as a miner or hunter would doing their tasks.
A hunter build might have Power, Vitality, Slingbow Epic and Mastery, and Armor. But also consider Health Epic, Energy Regen Epic, Agility and Jump. You will also need Atmospheric Protections at different levels and types for higher tier planets.
A Miner will be looking at Hammer skills, Power, Dexterity, Energy. A Gatherer Axe and/or Shovel. Maybe Agility and Jump to move about quickly.
At the end of the day you might prefer a hybrid build that suits you better.
I have an alt for crafting plus 3 skill pages on my main so I can be self sufficient. They only difference between having alts plus extra skill pages vs allowing us to have all skills on one build is the 15 min wait switching my skill set. Or the 30 second wait switching my character.