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I run shadowsun and an Ethereal. I'm having a really hard time parting with those two to get a drone controller commander. I do like the concept, it just seems a bit rought.

Maybe if I switch over to a more mobile force. Fire warriors in devilfish so no gunline and more suit squadrons the commander would be a good idea.

 Celtic Strike wrote:
I run shadowsun and an Ethereal. I'm having a really hard time parting with those two to get a drone controller commander. I do like the concept, it just seems a bit rought.

Maybe if I switch over to a more mobile force. Fire warriors in devilfish so no gunline and more suit squadrons the commander would be a good idea.

Man i got addicted to bs 5 marker lights. a constant reliable source is amazing for a riptide or hammerhead.

I agree. Marker commanders free up a lot of room for me because all of my marker needs are taken care of for all my heavy firepower, while a target lock and dual missiles give me an amazing range to still dish out some damage. Toss in iridium armor and 2+ LOS and the unit is incredibly durable. The marker commander offers markers that can be used where they are needed to support units that need a little boost.

 Desubot wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:
i want to run fusion heavy crisis in a non suicide deepstrike and ive been wanting to get beacons out there reliably. It looks like my only option is other crisis or recon drones and im not a big fan of it (pathfinders should find cover and stay put) Too bad the recon drone cant stay with a devil fish old school style. although it would work to keep your units off table first turn and keep them alive longer.

Crisis suits ant get Homing bacons, only pos relay which is for outflank.

what you want are Stealth suits which are Highly survivable in partial cover. take 3 with team leader upgrade, homing bacon, 2 shield drones, infiltrate and sit tight for back up.

Whoops, i never noticed that! that will work a whole lot better, too bad they take up an elite slot! Curse you almost mandatory riptide!

Lol Almost?

 Desubot wrote:
Lol Almost?

pretty much, hell, id take it just on looks alone, even if the rules were terrible. But only one, im limiting myself so i can learn to be more tactically flexible

Plasrifles and Fusion Blasters

I'm stuck between 2x suits with 2x plasmarifles or 2x missile pods and Early Warning System.

How do you think these Loadouts look in my 1850 list?

Commander 182
2 Plasma Rifles, Shield Generator, Iridium Armour, Puretide Chip, Neuroweb Jammer

XV8 Crisis Team 225
3 Battlesuits each armed with a Plasma Rifle and 2 Missile Pods, 2 Shield Drones

XV8 Crisis Team 225
3 Battlesuits, each armed with Fusion Blasters and 2 Missile Pods, 2 Shield Drones

XV8 Crisis Team 225
3 Battlesuits each armed with Fusion Blasters and 2 Missile Pods, 2 Shield Drones

I like the Idea of having 36 Missile Pod Shots early on (12 of which can have Tank Hunters) and can then switch to the other weapon if needed, but is it too expensive? What are your thoughts?

What I might do is swap things round a bit by giving my commander 2 Fusion and having 1 Fusion Crisis Team and 2 Plasma
Crisis Teams.

I do feel like the commander is tremendously expensive.

180 points would buy you Shadowsun, the ultimate beast of cover-camping destruction and her "re-roll ones"-drone.

And having 3 weapons on suits is nice in theory, but it would be cheaper and thus more efficient to just take dedicated suit platforms. That means a full squad of two plasma and a full squad of dual MP etc. A dual [insert weapon] squad with 2 [insert drone] is 180 points, and you can freely add useful upgrades such as an early warning override to counter deepstriking termies and such. And remember that you can give signature systems to XV8 'vres.

And that including a PEN-Commander to a unit of broadsides would be pretty sweet... MATH-HAMMER GO!

Commander w/ PEN, 2xMP and skyfire.

2x Broadside w/ skyfire and HYMP.

320 points.

Commander
HP-damage against a Helldrake (Tank-Hunter active):

0 22,85 %
1 40,80 %
2 27,32 %
3 8,13 %
4 0,91 %

Average: 1,23

Broadsides
HP-damage against a Helldrake (Tank-Hunter active):

0 7,40 %
1 22,78 %
2 30,66 %
3 23,58 %
4 11,34 %

Average: 2,22

Combined shooting from these bad-boys will most likely kill and/or severely damage even the toughest of flyers. Slap on some drones for defense, and start killing air.

Compare with 4 unbuffed Broadsides

HP-damage against a Helldrake:

0 5,41 %
1 17,31 %
2 25,96 %
3 24,23 %
4 15,75 %
5 7,56 %
6 2,77 %
7 0,79 %

Average: 2,66

I feel that for those 135pts of weapons you aren't fireing you could have another two hq crisis suits with two weapons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I feel that for those 135pts of weapons you aren't fireing you could have another two hq crisis suits with two weapons.

Yeah, you are probably right, I could probably get a couple of Fusion Piranhas or Crisis Bodyguard instead, Even an Ionhead would be a better choice, thanks for your input.

Hmm, i am wondering if its better to go MP-MP-FNP or go with a Shield....

I am most likely to have a unit of Crisis suits with dual MPs jumping back and forth, so have another unit of crisis suits with Fusions and plasmas just to annoy and destroy?

Dracoknight wrote:
Hmm, i am wondering if its better to go MP-MP-FNP or go with a Shield....

Shield. Can take the Invuln save even when you get hit by that Str 10 AP 1 template of doom from the Lemum Russ.

Last night I tried out this squad against IQ.

Commander
*Command and Control Node
*Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suit
*Neuroweb System Jammer
*Puretide Engram Neurocip
*Onager Gauntlet

Crisis Team (3x Shas'ui)

Suit 1 + 2
*Burst Cannon
*Plasma Rifle
*Gun Drone

Suit 3
*Fusion Blaster
*Fusion Blaster
*Target Lock
*Gun Drone

The commander was able to get the no scatter warlord trait, I deep struck behind his vehicals and was able to take out both his vindicator and Griffon thanks to PEN's Tank Hunter and Twin-Linked everything.

Thanks to a cliff he was using to cover the Griffon I was able to hide the command squad and was able to skirmish with it until the end of the game. I was even able to kill two guys in his command squad with Gets Hot.

I think if you're bringing the MSS you should probably bring all low AP weapons to get the most out of the ignoring cover save ability. Especially if you're planning on deepstriking and going against vehicles.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I think if you're bringing the MSS you should probably bring all low AP weapons to get the most out of the ignoring cover save ability. Especially if you're planning on deepstriking and going against vehicles.

I tend to face heavy foot armies, either IG, Orks, and SM, with some heavy vehicles. The Broken Sunforge is there take out the high AV targets, while the rest of the squad his there to both protect him, and take out key targets in the area like IG/Orks behind an ADL.

I think the Mark'O is fine and dandy and all, but I keep thinking about a crisis team with EW Shas'vre (C&C, M3S, DC), a couple of XV8's with whatever guns you like (4 Plasmas or Missile Pods between them, probably), and 6 Markerlight Drones. Those drones hit with BS3 re-rolled, which is almost as good as the BS5 from the Mark'O, and better if you're lighting up Flyers. The drones are also cheaper, and you're not using up an HQ slot. You're paying far fewer points for an EW Shas'vre plus 6 attached drones than for the Mark'O plus independent drones, and you gain the benefit of the EW Shas'vre on the attached Crisis Suits also. 4 twin-linked plasma rifles that ignore cover. C'mon, that's just badass. Maybe it's just because I also have this idea of putting the Iridium Commander in a front-line crisis team where his crazy toughness will get more use, and his BS5 can boost 8 attached gun drones. I know S5 AP5 shots aren't as sexy as markerlights, but you'll rarely miss with more than one out of 16 pulse carbine shots, and that hurts anything with a toughness value.

I think too many people are putting to much faith into taking a commander and/or shas'vre with the upgrades just to have him give up his shooting for ignore coversave and rerolls. Feels like your giving up a lot of shooting potential for a couple buff to only one unit. I feel like those points are better off else where.

BTW the only reason I think people do it on a commander is because the less likely hood that your expensive buff unit dies to a missile launcher or something similar early.

Commander
Drone Controller; Command and Control Node; Dronesx2 ; retro thrusters

Crisis team
3 suits ; Missile Pod x2 ; drone x2 flamer x1

12 TL missile podshots, some number of BS 5 TL Marker lights.

Honestly cant stand MSSS or the C&CN on a Commander. its such a waste of points for such a nice BS5 body.

if anything should stick it on a team leader upgrade and make it a support suit. as well take some marker drones on that team leader for 4 bs5 marker lights.

 Desubot wrote:
Honestly cant stand MSSS or the C&CN on a Commander. its such a waste of points for such a nice BS5 body. if anything should stick it on a team leader upgrade and make it a support suit. as well take some marker drones on that team leader for 4 bs5 marker lights.

So much this. Don't waste an extra 50pts getting a BS5 suit, just to use it to cart around wargear that forces you not to shoot.

Coyote81 wrote:I think too many people are putting to much faith into taking a commander and/or shas'vre with the upgrades just to have him give up his shooting for ignore coversave and rerolls. Feels like your giving up a lot of shooting potential for a couple buff to only one unit. I feel like those points are better off else where.

BTW the only reason I think people do it on a commander is because the less likely hood that your expensive buff unit dies to a missile launcher or something similar early.

I do see value in MSSS, even if you only have 2 other suits in the unit that are going to be taking advantage of it. If Tau are reliant on Markerlights, then a C2 Node is basically equivalent to 1 ML hit, and the MSSS is equivalent to 2 more. That's essentially 6 Pathfinders worth of Markerlights. You're getting what amounts to 66 points of Markerlight hits for 35 points; that alone is a steal. Doing it while not taking up Markerlight hits the rest of your army needs, is an even larger advantage. Oh, and doing it means that your support suit can comfortably use that last hardpoint for a Drone Controller, increasing the number of hits that markerlight unit throws out by about 36%. I can't imagine why someone would think that's a bad deal, especially if it's getting carted around on a mere 32 point Crisis 'vre instead of an 85 point Crisis Commander.

Veskrashen wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Honestly cant stand MSSS or the C&CN on a Commander. its such a waste of points for such a nice BS5 body. if anything should stick it on a team leader upgrade and make it a support suit. as well take some marker drones on that team leader for 4 bs5 marker lights.

So much this. Don't waste an extra 50pts getting a BS5 suit, just to use it to cart around wargear that forces you not to shoot.

Coyote81 wrote:I think too many people are putting to much faith into taking a commander and/or shas'vre with the upgrades just to have him give up his shooting for ignore coversave and rerolls. Feels like your giving up a lot of shooting potential for a couple buff to only one unit. I feel like those points are better off else where.

BTW the only reason I think people do it on a commander is because the less likely hood that your expensive buff unit dies to a missile launcher or something similar early.

I do see value in MSSS, even if you only have 2 other suits in the unit that are going to be taking advantage of it. If Tau are reliant on Markerlights, then a C2 Node is basically equivalent to 1 ML hit, and the MSSS is equivalent to 2 more. That's essentially 6 Pathfinders worth of Markerlights. You're getting what amounts to 66 points of Markerlight hits for 35 points; that alone is a steal. Doing it while not taking up Markerlight hits the rest of your army needs, is an even larger advantage. Oh, and doing it means that your support suit can comfortably use that last hardpoint for a Drone Controller, increasing the number of hits that markerlight unit throws out by about 36%. I can't imagine why someone would think that's a bad deal, especially if it's getting carted around on a mere 32 point Crisis 'vre instead of an 85 point Crisis Commander.

See I dont find the C2 node or MSSS good even on a crisis vre as youre neglecting the cost of the vre which is 32 points what youre really comparing is 67 pts of crisis worth 3 marker hits for effectively a two model unit, maybe you include drones, but that's at most 12 S5 shots that are already twin linked. So T4 wounds vs a marker system that cab support whatever point of your army for a point less which if necessary can use pulse carbines whilst also having 3 times as many wounds.

The only place I see support systems like those being viable is if you go for a Farsight deathstar.

Jakobokaj wrote:
See I dont find the C2 node or MSSS good even on a crisis vre as youre neglecting the cost of the vre which is 32 points what youre really comparing is 67 pts of crisis worth 3 marker hits for effectively a two model unit, maybe you include drones, but that's at most 12 S5 shots that are already twin linked. So T4 wounds vs a marker system that cab support whatever point of your army for a point less which if necessary can use pulse carbines whilst also having 3 times as many wounds. The only place I see support systems like those being viable is if you go for a Farsight deathstar.

I can see your point, of including the total cost of the unit. In which case you're taking a 75 point 'vre to get 6 markerlights worth of hits for the 2 other Crisis Suits in the unit, plus an additional 22pts of ML hits for the drones in the unit if any. In that case it's 88pts of markerlights for 75pts of Crisis 'Vre.

That said, the unit I intend to run said Crisis 'Vre in consists of the 'Vre, 2 Crisis with 2x Plasma Rifles and a Target Lock each, and 6x Markerlight Drones. This gives me something far different than just some free ML hits for the rest of the team. In essence, I get the 177pt Mark'O plus 6 drone combo for 147pts, plus I get a 2-man Burning Eye team with 66pts worth of free ML hits, all in 1 FOC slot instead of 3 FOC slots. There's a lot to be said for that kind of point and FOC slot efficiency.

Veskrashen wrote:

Jakobokaj wrote:
See I dont find the C2 node or MSSS good even on a crisis vre as youre neglecting the cost of the vre which is 32 points what youre really comparing is 67 pts of crisis worth 3 marker hits for effectively a two model unit, maybe you include drones, but that's at most 12 S5 shots that are already twin linked. So T4 wounds vs a marker system that cab support whatever point of your army for a point less which if necessary can use pulse carbines whilst also having 3 times as many wounds. The only place I see support systems like those being viable is if you go for a Farsight deathstar.

I can see your point, of including the total cost of the unit. In which case you're taking a 75 point 'vre to get 6 markerlights worth of hits for the 2 other Crisis Suits in the unit, plus an additional 22pts of ML hits for the drones in the unit if any. In that case it's 88pts of markerlights for 75pts of Crisis 'Vre.

That said, the unit I intend to run said Crisis 'Vre in consists of the 'Vre, 2 Crisis with 2x Plasma Rifles and a Target Lock each, and 6x Markerlight Drones. This gives me something far different than just some free ML hits for the rest of the team. In essence, I get the 177pt Mark'O plus 6 drone combo for 147pts, plus I get a 2-man Burning Eye team with 66pts worth of free ML hits, all in 1 FOC slot instead of 3 FOC slots. There's a lot to be said for that kind of point and FOC slot efficiency.

Some very good points and youre getting me to reconsider a little. But I see some logical flaws. First it is not fair to compare this to a Mark'o as a Mark'o should always take a full drone contingent (I have trouble validating that also as it seems an excessive amount of markerlights for any units, but if I dont take the full drone amount im being inefficient.) Also you claim that those are free ML hits, but you can only say that if you were to have pathfinders that you would actually use their point to buff only two burninveye and drones (highly inefficient imo) I see the benefit, I just feel there are better options. I especially like your marker drones with suits as you use the original pathfinder markers to boost the Bs of your drones to boost the bs of future units shooting at that target.

Jakobokaj wrote:

See I dont find the C2 node or MSSS good even on a crisis vre as youre neglecting the cost of the vre which is 32 points what youre really comparing is 67 pts of crisis worth 3 marker hits for effectively a two model unit, maybe you include drones, but that's at most 12 S5 shots that are already twin linked. So T4 wounds vs a marker system that cab support whatever point of your army for a point less which if necessary can use pulse carbines whilst also having 3 times as many wounds.

The only place I see support systems like those being viable is if you go for a Farsight deathstar.

I mostly agree but i feel like doing a points compassion. say 3 suits + commander for maxed out missile + twinlinked missile = 6 non twinlinked and 10 twinlinked = 11.4 hits total for 296 vs a support vre = 9.88 hits for 266 points
this is all without the fixins, and other supporting gear but overall its 26 points per hit vs 27 points per hit. its pretty much identical.

 Desubot wrote:

Jakobokaj wrote:

See I dont find the C2 node or MSSS good even on a crisis vre as youre neglecting the cost of the vre which is 32 points what youre really comparing is 67 pts of crisis worth 3 marker hits for effectively a two model unit, maybe you include drones, but that's at most 12 S5 shots that are already twin linked. So T4 wounds vs a marker system that cab support whatever point of your army for a point less which if necessary can use pulse carbines whilst also having 3 times as many wounds.

The only place I see support systems like those being viable is if you go for a Farsight deathstar.

I mostly agree but i feel like doing a points compassion. say 3 suits + commander for maxed out missile + twinlinked missile = 6 non twinlinked and 10 twinlinked = 11.4 hits total for 296 vs a support vre = 9.88 hits for 266 points
this is all without the fixins, and other supporting gear but overall its 26 points per hit vs 27 points per hit. its pretty much identical.

Hmm okay, that actually works out far better than I thought. I'd love to hear your guys thoughts on optimal S7 platforms for tau. Im very torn between double missile pod crisis suit bs a full contingent of missileside with full drones and a mix or velocity tracker and target lock. The broadsides are far cheaper S7 spam and better AA even without velocity. They are also less likely to die to a baleflamer helldrake or similar. The problem is they have limited range and virtually no mobility. Whereas crisis suits will always have shots and it should be on side or rear armor, which broadsides won't. The cost is less total fore per unit, higher cost per shot and lower armor save.

Jakobokaj wrote:
Some very good points and youre getting me to reconsider a little. But I see some logical flaws. First it is not fair to compare this to a Mark'o as a Mark'o should always take a full drone contingent (I have trouble validating that also as it seems an excessive amount of markerlights for any units, but if I dont take the full drone amount im being inefficient.) Also you claim that those are free ML hits, but you can only say that if you were to have pathfinders that you would actually use their point to buff only two burninveye and drones (highly inefficient imo) I see the benefit, I just feel there are better options. I especially like your marker drones with suits as you use the original pathfinder markers to boost the Bs of your drones to boost the bs of future units shooting at that target.

The "need" to take a full unit of 12 ML drones to justify the cost of a Mark'O is exactly one of the reasons I don't take him. I have a very, very hard time seeing the need to reliably put 10 ML tokens on a single target each turn. Exactly WTF are you trying to kill that you need to boost 2 BS3 units to BS5 + ignore cover, and still throw a third unit at it with ignore cover? Especially when anything that requires that much volume of fire to take down is probably better off being shot by massed FWs at BS5, and screw the ignore cover buff. I find that 4-5 ML hits on a target are generally enough to get the job done, or at least cause my fires to be effective enough to ensure another round of shooting at it before it can do it's thing.

As far as marking up a target for just 2 Burning Eyes - absolutely. That's 8 S7 AP2 shots you're sending downrange, son, at TL BS3 that ignores cover. That'll put the hurt on a whole lotta things, and I don't have to worry about positioning scarce ML resources to get that bonus. Oh, and it means that I can do that *and* light up another target with 4-5 ML hits, letting the rest of my army hammer the snot out of it. It's an incredibly underrated way to add flexibility to how you allocate your firepower and handle threats. If your opponent knows you can only remove cover from one target per turn with your MLs, it's easy enough to force you into a situation where you have to choose between two immediate threats. Being able to mark up one and put the hurt on another without additional support is an amazing capability IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jakobokaj wrote:
I'd love to hear your guys thoughts on optimal S7 platforms for tau. Im very torn between double missile pod crisis suit bs a full contingent of missileside with full drones and a mix or velocity tracker and target lock. The broadsides are far cheaper S7 spam and better AA even without velocity. They are also less likely to die to a baleflamer helldrake or similar. The problem is they have limited range and virtually no mobility. Whereas crisis suits will always have shots and it should be on side or rear armor, which broadsides won't. The cost is less total fore per unit, higher cost per shot and lower armor save.

My optimal S7 platform is no S7 platform. Or at least, no platform dedicated to throwing S7 shots at a target.

I run Hammerheads with Ion Cannons and Razorsharks. They exist to throw S8 pieplates on things that annoy me. If there is something that annoys me, and it's not really optimal to hit it with a S8 pieplate, then that means 1 of a few things. Either it's single wound TEQs, or it's an MC, or it's a vehicle. If it's TEQs, then my usual solution is massed pulse fire with Ethereal and ML support, with plasma rifles to clean up. If it's an MC, then it's eating massed Seeker Missile fire from my Skyray and Devilfish, then Ion Cannons in direct fire mode. If it's a vehicle, then it eats Quad Ion Cannon in the side / rear plus Seekers, or it eats Deep Striking Fusion Blaster Crisis Suits. Flyers I either ignore (I don't consider Vendettas all that good against mech heavy Tau), or they eat QICs in rear armor plus Skyray assisted TL Fusion.

In short, because we've got such good access to other weapons now on so many good platforms, I consider missile pods (and Kroot Guns) to be a less optimal choice. Ion rifles I'm also kinda meh on, because small blasts are so much less effective than large blasts. In addition, vehicles are so much better than Pathfinders at handling overheats. I feel that Tau players in general got sucked into a mindset of "Crisis = Fireknife or Deathrain" because Broadside spam took care of heavy vehicles so well, and 5th had a heavy emphasis on lots of light armor. I don't feel that situation holds, and as a result I don't put a lot of emphasis on MP availability.

What are you wanting your missile pods to do, role wise? What else do you generally field and why? That would let us give you a much better answer.

Veskrashen wrote:

Jakobokaj wrote:
Some very good points and youre getting me to reconsider a little. But I see some logical flaws. First it is not fair to compare this to a Mark'o as a Mark'o should always take a full drone contingent (I have trouble validating that also as it seems an excessive amount of markerlights for any units, but if I dont take the full drone amount im being inefficient.) Also you claim that those are free ML hits, but you can only say that if you were to have pathfinders that you would actually use their point to buff only two burninveye and drones (highly inefficient imo) I see the benefit, I just feel there are better options. I especially like your marker drones with suits as you use the original pathfinder markers to boost the Bs of your drones to boost the bs of future units shooting at that target.

The "need" to take a full unit of 12 ML drones to justify the cost of a Mark'O is exactly one of the reasons I don't take him. I have a very, very hard time seeing the need to reliably put 10 ML tokens on a single target each turn. Exactly WTF are you trying to kill that you need to boost 2 BS3 units to BS5 + ignore cover, and still throw a third unit at it with ignore cover? Especially when anything that requires that much volume of fire to take down is probably better off being shot by massed FWs at BS5, and screw the ignore cover buff. I find that 4-5 ML hits on a target are generally enough to get the job done, or at least cause my fires to be effective enough to ensure another round of shooting at it before it can do it's thing.

As far as marking up a target for just 2 Burning Eyes - absolutely. That's 8 S7 AP2 shots you're sending downrange, son, at TL BS3 that ignores cover. That'll put the hurt on a whole lotta things, and I don't have to worry about positioning scarce ML resources to get that bonus. Oh, and it means that I can do that *and* light up another target with 4-5 ML hits, letting the rest of my army hammer the snot out of it. It's an incredibly underrated way to add flexibility to how you allocate your firepower and handle threats. If your opponent knows you can only remove cover from one target per turn with your MLs, it's easy enough to force you into a situation where you have to choose between two immediate threats. Being able to mark up one and put the hurt on another without additional support is an amazing capability IMO.

Yea I entirely agree with your thoughts on Mark'o for him to be cost efficient he must become excessive. What I am far not interested in is running a dual burst commander with 10 gun drones and a drone controller from a 5 man piranha squad. 20Tl Bs 5 S5 Shots 20 Bs3 and 8Bs5 for 313 points also giving me a good blocking harass unit with piranhas and 5 av11 vehicle who can get great cover saves while gaining 14 T4 wounds. Personally I see that as a steal, I was tempted to use fusion originally but then it either has to many fusion shots to be reasonable pr is wasting the commander on a small number of drones.

Okay gonna do some quick numbers here, I haven't checked these yet so I may become a convert to your strategy by the time im done typing this.

So your unit puts out 8 tl bs3 shots that ignore cover. As well as 6 Tl bs3 markers.
If I didn't my math right that's 261 points.
So 6 plasma hits, and 4.5 marker hits.
Thats 43.5 points per plasma hit and 58 points per marker hit.
The unit I propose will be 3 dual plasma crisis suits, one upgraded to a 'vre (probably wouldn't generally do this but for sake of comparison of makes sense) and lets say 2 target locks and a drone controller as well as 6 marker drones. Now I will need another unit to support this one, lets say im using 66 points of pathfinders (I actually often use sniper drone teams for situations like this as they're cheaper per marker hit and the sniper drones share a target type with plasma suits) this puts me at 322 pts, but im also going to run the numbers for 88 points of pathfinders as that's what I use if going for pathfinders (344).

With three hits from pathfinders (66) I will get 8 plasma hits and 4 marker hits.

This works out to 40.25 points per plasma hit and 80.5 per marker. At 3 supporting marker hits its better for my squad for killing but worse support.

Assuming four marker hits (344 points) I will get 10 plasma hits and 5 marker hits.

This works out to 34.4 points per plasma hit and 68.8 per marker hit.

They come out reasonably close, with my unit getting more wounds and the ability to use the pathfinders for something else, but at the cost of having more dependency on another unit and worrying about my support being shot out, yours has a similar problem that for each suit you lose in that squad you either drop 50% of your firepower or all of your support items. Neither is great, my unit can either keep firing at a lower effectiveness if the pathfinders are killed or if the suits drop the pathfinders may mark for another squad. I get the using one less FOC slit but I can't see myself needing more than three fast attack units before 2k.

If you arent already with this unit I'd recommend taking PEN on the commander alongside the two other support modules assuming it isn't taken elsewhere, and put the drone controller on a regular suit and only having one target lock, the increased ability against MCs and vehicles is great, and if the unit makes it until the end of the game they can more safely contest by using the stubborn special rule

Your numbers seem correct. Again, what I feel you're missing is that the point of this unit is to generate reliable ML hits on a mobile, survivable platform. To get enough ML hits out of a ML drone focused unit, that means I need to either a) take a Drone Squadron plus Mark'O or b) use a Crisis Team with ML drones. We've discussed why I think option a) is a bad choice, so let's discuss how best to make option b) work.

The easy thing do to would be to take 3x Crisis, 1 with 2x MPs and Drone Controller, the other two with MPs and either TLs or EWOs. That would match ranges with the MLs, which means you can sit in your backfield and do the oldskool Deathrain Shuffle. That's neat and all, but if I'm throwing 12 MP shots downrange at a target, that means it's a huge threat in it's own right, and I want those MP shots to have an impact. Which means I need to have ML support for the Crisis team, which cascades the problem again: I either need more mobile MLs, or I need to rely on static MLs on PFs.

If we run with all TLs, and only 1 MP on the DC suit, then things get a bit better. MLs can mark up one target, while the MPs rain down on something else. Not bad, but like I said elsewhere, I'm not big on MPs on Crisis in this edition. Crisis means special weapons I can't get easily in other FOC slots, at least to me.

So Fusion and Plasma it is, IMO. I can run 5x Plasma Rifles with 3x TLs and a DC, no problem, and still have my 6 ML drones. That only generates 3 ML hits per turn, and those 5x PRs are at BS3 with no other ML support. Which means either ML cascades from static PFs (and if I'm running those, why am I bothering with ML drones anyway?), or not getting the most effectiveness out of my AP2 goodness.

Which is where the Support 'Vre comes in. By sacrificing those extra PR shots, you make sure that your single unit accomplishes several different tasks. You get a full PF team's worth of ML hits, on a mobile and survivable platform. You get PR shots that have full impact on their targets with no additional support needed. In short, you get 2-3 units worth of effectiveness out of one unit, and as you noted in your calculations it's pretty efficient overall, even when you're including the points for stuff not contributing to its role.

Essentially, I'd run the numbers as 187pts for the ML support, and 179pts for the firepower. That's counting the full cost of the Support 'Vre in both cases (total unit cost is 291). That puts it at 29.8pts per PR hit, and 41.5 per ML hit. Your 322pts, divided between ML support (205 for the 'Vre, PFs, and drones) and 237 for the Plasma (all 3 Crisis plus the PFs). That puts it at 29.6 per PR hit and 51.25 per ML hit. A lot closer on both, but my configuration is cheaper by 30+ points, and you get ML hits more efficiently coming out of the unit. Oh, and you don't have to rely on immobile, squishy Pathfinders to get the job done.

Of course, the best ML platform in the army are still Tetras, but if you have Tetras you don't need Crisis ML teams or Mark'Os.