Skyray - Declaring Shooting

Here is something I have been mulling over for a while now. At what point do I have to declare how many Seeker Missiles I am going to regular fire from the Skyray. The part that is confusing me is that it has two networked markerlights which "...are always fired first. Once the shots from the networked markerlights are resolved, the unit can the fire their other weapons...". Does that mean I should finish shooting the networked markerlights first then declare how many Seeker Missiles I want to shoot, or would I declare first then resolve the markerlights then finish shooting everything else. I am leaning towards declaring them after the markerlights, but I might be biased a little bit

I have not read the tau book, but I would say that you could fire your marker lights as one action, have it resolve, and then treat the regular shooting as a second action.

So light up, then decide missiles

Well normally markerlights are resolved at the exact same time as other shooting (for example if I have a unit of 5 gun drones and 3 markerlight drones the gun drones cannot benefit from the markerlight drones hits as their shoot occurs "at the same time"). The part I'm concerned about is that the Skyray has "networked markerlights" which change a bit according to the quote I posted first. I agree that since in that sentence is the word "resolved" I take it that after I finish the networked markerlight shooting I proceed to shoot the rest of the Skyray, which would include determining how many of the Seeker Missiles I want to manually shoot. Again though I might be a little biased

Might help to know more about the seeker missiles and how theyre fired. How do they work, and what would it mean in terms of how many you can fire if you rule the markerlights either way? It sounds like your implying fewer are fired if the lights and seekers go simultaneously?

Seeker Missiles are now basically Hunter Killer Missiles (they do have an alternate fire mode but I'm not concerned about that for this question). The difference being that the Skyray carries 6 of them. So out of the two scenarios below, which is the correct order to fire in.

1. Skyray picks a target; fires its networked markerlights first and resolves them(lets say I score 1 Hit with the markerlight); I decided I want to use the markerlight hit for +1BS; the Skyray fires the rest of its weapons, during which I decide I want to shoot 3 Seeker Missiles

2. Skyray picks a target; I decided I want to shoot two Seeker Missiles; I fire the networked markerlights and resolve them (I score 2 hits this time); I decide I want to use both markerlights for "scouring" which removes all cover saves; The skyray fires the rest of its weapons.

The part I don't know is if I have to declare how many Seeker Missiles I am shooting before or after the Networked Markerlights.

I was under the impression that you could not manually fire seeker missiles.

Either way, I would still say that you resolve lights before choosing how the rest of the shooting will go

Seeker Missiles can still be fired with the expenditure of markerlight tokens (the process is slightly different), but they can now be fired manually using the BS of the firer as a one shot weapon.

Are you limited to 2 per round as per missile shooting rules?

If so is that including both laser fired and manual fired?

Or is that a plane thing?

2 per round is a fliers only rule.

I would say, based on the "resolved first" wording, you can pick your number of missiles after you fired, as that overrules the "all weapons fire at same time" rule.
You only have 6 after all.

I searched the networked markerlights on my iCodex, and their wording i think clears it up:

when a unit with one or more markerlights makes a shooting attack, the markerlights always shoot first. After they are resolved, the rest of the units weapons fire as normal. This means that unlike other units, they can expend their markerlight tokens on their own shots in order to benefits their other weapons.

After reading that one markerlight mode, seeker, thats definitely helpful to a skyray.