Stupid question, but as the title above says...

Little confused about how multiple units disembark. All at the same time or one at a time?

The only way formations can disembark from a flying war engine transport that's off the board is for that war engine to activate and perform an engage or ground attack action. either way the war engine lands and all formations within also activate at the same time (single move and fire in the case of ground attack, engage move in the case of engage) and crucially, they all count as one large formation until the activation is ended. After that they're treated as separate formations but during the disembark they and the war engine are counted as one formation.

Not exactly what I'm looking for. That works for units disembarking from WE, but I'm talking Support Craft....Like the Tau Manta. It's a War Engine, but it's also a support craft.

You want page 29 of the EA rulebook then:

" It can dismount the transported
units at the end of a move in the same way as a normal
transport vehicle (ie, the units are placed within 5cms of the
transport at the end of a move).

Formations that dismount in this way may not take an action in
the turn they dismount, but are allowed to either shoot or fight
in an assault if the war engine that was transporting it is able to
shoot or assault. In both cases, the war engine and the
transported units are treated as a single formation until the
shooting attack or assault has been resolved. The war engine
and the formation that disembarked are treated as being
separate formations once the war engine has completely
resolved its action."

Beginning of the Compendium:

0.1.3 Support Craft
Support Craft are much like a hybrid between a Skimmer and an Aircraft.
They remain high up in the air, hovering over the battlefield, firing over
intervening terrain when possible. Support Craft function identically to a
Skimmer unit that is always ‘popped up’. Support Craft fire and are fired at
normally (i.e. anti- aircraft ability is not required). In an assault, Support Craft
automatically force a firefight in the same manner Skimmers may choose. It is
assumed that Support Craft transports or the troops they carry are
appropriately equipped to embark and disembark troops as normal.

so basically, you activate the support craft as you would an air transport, by declaring a ground assault. However, as well as flying on, it can arrive by planetfall - so scatters etc. At that point I believe *all* formations disembark, and the Support craft carries out the assault. There is a tacit understanding that the support craft has some form of transporter to disembark or embark troops (otherwise they would automatically die).

Support Craft are skimmers, not aircraft at all. I know things like the Manta feel like they should be travelling fast, but they don't. They're just skimmers that are always popped up.

This also means that (unless planetfalling) it must be deployed on the board at game start.

+1 to Signal, and to MikeT's second post with the rule quote. Treat a support craft transport just like you would a Leviathan or Capitol Imperialis. Everything else about it revolves around the aspect of the WE itself (it is always popped up, all units can draw a line of fire to it, etc.).

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Is the Support Craft always "popped up" rule supposed to be the same as normal "popped up" rule or is the intention of the rule meant to be the Support Craft can always be targeted.

If it is the latter then it needs to be stated as such in the Tau army book because the normal "popped up" rules for skimmers means they can still hide behind terrain.

I think Mosc is just making a generalisation that a Support Craft is usually pretty easy to target. The rule works just as written, Support Craft follow the rules of a skimmer that counts as popped up at all times.

The question is about "multiple units disembarking" which makes me think it is a question about either the WE transport rules or planetfall.

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As all say above, a Support craft is a hybrid between a skimmer and an aircraft. It has a single activation and all troops it carries are deemed to have activated when they disembark (see 3.1.3 WE transport). It is deemed to be a cross between a skimmer and an aircraft so permanently 'popped up' and therefore targetable anywhere on the battlefield.

As the Tau Manta also has 'self-planetfall', it can start the game off-table and arrive by self-planetfall, or it can be deployed on-table like any other formation (empty or full). When it uses self-planetfall, the arrival point and turn is plotted before the game, but it activates by declaring any of the standard (not a/c) activations. Then it is placed on the table and 'scattered' to determine its initial position before carrying out the declared activation.

Note in 'normal' planetfall, it is the Spaceship that activates, *not* the WE transport. Therefore, at the end of the spaceship's activation, there are a number of un-activated formations newly arrived on the table including the WE transport. This is the main distinction between self-planetfall and 'normal' planetfall.

Yme-Loc is right.
A Support Craft is not targetable anywhere on the battlefield.
It follows the normal rules for being popped up as per a skimmer.
As such, normal skimmer rules apply (ie, check who's nearer to any intervening terrain etc).

Mantas cannot activate as per the aircraft rules.
Self-planetfall has been covered already.

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That's exactly the question I'm asking ...although I will say the conversation has been intriguing

So if I'm understanding this correctly, when the support craft is activated and disembarks a unit, it's all the units on board, not just one?

The latest versions of the Tau list appear have the Manta with "Planetfall" rather than "Self-Planetfall".
I saw the 2008 listings had it as "free planetfall", that is equivalent to "self planet-fall".
Is this just something that has slipped off its list of attributes, or deliberate?