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I have seen advice that plas/missile should be spammed on every suit. I have seen advice that all but the leaders should be two sets of missiles, while the leader and squad drop down with melta and plasma to try and take out armor/high priority targets. And I have seen drop em all with flamers and let the devilfish help you incinerate stuff, although that one dosent seem likely a good strategy to me. Have yet to see a fantastic stealth suilt situation where there as useful sadly.

So what is the concensus? Since tau struggle with the new dex power creep anyway, wanna get the most bang for my buck possible. And yes I can magnet weapons, just wondering which I shiould try out and playtest first.

Fireknife is certainly the most popular all around load out (Plasma rifle, Missile Pod, Multi-tracker), however it's also among the most expensive points wise.

Deathrain (TL missilepod, with the third hard slot being either a targetting array, flamer, or blacksun filter) is a great mid-long range light vehicle popper.

Something I like doing is having the team leader set up as a BS 4 fireknife (Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Targetting Array, hard wired multi-tracker) and the two regular team members as a specialized version, either deathrain for a anti-armor focused unit or burning eye (TL Plasma rifles) for anti-heavy infantry/mc. the third hard slot could be Targetting arrays (more hits, but more cost) Flamers (cheap and an option for anti-horde or a last ditch shot, although without a multi-tracker you have to fire one or the other) or black sun filters (cheapest option).

I'm not crazy about fusion blasters on Crisis suits, I prefer my anti-tank with Rail-guns and/or Piranha. But many people do advocate squads with fusion and target locks, or a single suicide suit to deep strike in and try and take armor out.

I know some proponents of the TL flamer & Blacksun Filter cheap crisis suits to try and burn units off of objectives, and I read a batrep once where someone got it to work well against blob guard. But it's a high risk scenario trying to deepstrike in close enough to make it work.

It depends on what you're wanting the suit to do. You can have 2 options you can designate each individual squad to have a certain purpose (anti tank, anti infantry etc.) or you can designate each individual suit in a unit to have a differant purpose.

Generally speaking most people do take missle launchers since they're so versatile.

Kroot Loops pretty much hit it on the head for the best configs, my only addition would be a recent addition to my Crisis force,
the Flamer, missle pod, shield generator, with a team leader HW target lock and HW multi-tracker, the config allows for long range engagement and some flamer action, and with the addition of the shield gens, its fairly survivable.

And as to fusion blasters, I will only put them on team leaders, in combo with missle pods, I really like MPs I am a firm believer in range saves lives

I hope any of this is helpful.

Hmm good point on the melta, and I think tau have enough long range anti tank to skip it. Well knowing that helps, so it comes down to range and shots for missiles, or armor pen for plasma. Cant really see flamers paying off, but they are about the only way to field em for tau, so mabye as the 3rd slot.

Luckily for you, someone created a rather lengthy article on this topic.

Tau suit loadouts are one of those 40k topics where there's no real reason to reinvent the wheel.

Dont' be a hero: run one of the three or four pre-approved builds.

I was surprised to see that there's no mention of a suit with a burst cannon/missile pod + a multi-tracker. Not too terribly expensive, and not too inflexible either.

I dont play them much anymore but my old favourite was fusion blaster and missile launcher, or plasma gun and flamer/burst cannon. The HQ was always cyclic ion blaster though, I remember that well. Other equipment usually varied on their roll and who was accompanying them.

First: I don't think there's really a "consensus" on the matter. However, as you pointed out, there are really only two "good" load-outs.

The first is the "fireknife." Plasma + Missile Pod + Multi-tracker makes the the unit the most versatile, and most deadly, unit in your army. You can man-handle light vehicles AND hurt termies and other MEQ's. As mentioned, it's expensive. But it's also inaccurate if you take them in the elite slot. In the HQ slot, you can take the BS4 commander AND give him bodyguard with hard-wired multi-trackers AND targeting arrays. That gives you a BS4 fireknife unit. That's why I always ONLY take them in the HQ slot. It's really expensive, but after playtesting the bejesus out of my tau for the last 4 years, I'm firmly convinced that that's the way to go.

I do take the death rains in the elite slot, though, because they're cheaper and more accurate than fireknives in that slot. That's what does it at the end of the day--accuracy and point cost. It's actually a myth that tau are BS3. We're actually BS4--we just have to pay a premium for it.

As for all those other configurations: if you're running anything other than plasma rifles and missile pods, then you're making a mistake. All the other weapon choices are either A) bad [like all of out special-issue wargear] or B) too short range to make it worth putting on our crisis suits. It's not a good idea to give a short-range gun to the best and most important unit in your list, especially when that unit sucks at close combat. You're just asking to get hosed.