When should a mercenary unit upgrade their dropship if at all?

[Demon55]

When should a mercenary unit upgrade their dropship if at all?

If the unit saved up sufficiently would an upgrade be worth the cost?  I can possible see that being true post 3050. 

[Kovax]

Depends on what you mean by "upgrade".  If you're talking about "trading in" the smaller one for something with more capacity, the relative scarcity of Dropships is likely to make that a lengthy and uncertain search, especially in the Succession Wars period.  If you're talking about upgrading it to a newer set of specs (ER and Pulse weapons, DHS, etc.), then it's going to put the ship out of action for some time, and many mercenary units won't consider it worth the down time.  Much cheaper to guard it with an upgraded ASF or two.  Changing a couple of cargo cubicles around, on the other hand, might not take more than a few weeks or months, which you can probably do while the rest of your unit is on a garrison contract or something, although life support and recycling changes for carrying infantry or a lot of other personnel might get more complicated.

[Kidd]

If your Dropship is taking fire, something's gone wrong.

[Demon55]

If your Dropship is taking fire, something's gone wrong.

Yes.

I was asking about upgrading the weapons and heatsinks.

[Colt Ward]

IMO this is where it gets complicated b/c none of the canon variants are straight weapons swaps.  And in some cases like the Union the armor changes.

While what Kidd said is right, if your DS is taking fire you probably have a bigger problem . . . sometimes you want it to come down into the fight (Roderick used 'burned' his ships by having them drop on a enemy airfield to neutralize the ASF & DS there- also made his folks fight harder).

However IMO if you were swapping old AC/5s for LBX or Ultras, std lasers & PPCs for ERs . . . then I do not think its that big of a deal- the turret is getting opened up just like it would on a tank.

DHS are going to be different, the hull might have to come off in places since you are working on the reactor heart of the ship.

[2ndAcr]

 I don't do a bunch of weapons upgrades, but I will customize a dropship to tailor it to what I need. I have a Union set up to carry a Clan Binary Nova, 10 Mechs and 50 Elementals. I even designed a Overlord to carry a Aero squadron, 30 Omni Mechs and 150 Elementals.

 Lion that hauls a Mech Company, 2 light Vehicle Companies and 2 Infantry Companies, yep did it. Perfect raiding Dropship.
 

[idea weenie]

If you are using a Leopard, upgrade ASAP.  You are only carrying a lance of Mechs, and either 2 ASF, an ASF and a platoon, or 2 platoons, or maybe a few vehicles.

One of the better Dropships to use, as long as you don't put it into hostile environments is a Mule.  Lots of cargo capacity that can have Mech and Vehicle bays added in (though you will need to cut the hull if you want to drop the Mechs), so you can carry a very nice size force, and even trade with the locals.  You might get a contract to guard an LRM factory, and while there you might as well try to buy the LRMs at factory pricing instead of sale price.

That could be a fun 'partnership' mission.  You get a contract to raid an LRM factory and steal its output with the hiring organization gets half.  But before you perform the raid, you send a fast small craft with a negotiator down to the factory to purchase the factory-built LRMs, and arrange that only a couple tons of LRM ammo are left over.  So you 'loot' the factory for 2 tons of LRM ammo, give 1 to the person who hired you, and put the other 998 tons into your ship's cargo hold.

"Sorry, they had just sold a large chunk of the output before our raid.  This is all they had left."


You can also perform a lightning raid, and after the raid is over, talk to the locals about selling the extra equipment on your Dropship to help rebuild their forces.

"Sorry about that, our contract said we had to do a raid here.  But we do have 30 light and heavy vehicles in our cargo bay that are for sale for the next hour, if we can come to some sort of an agreement.  A nice mix of Demolishers, heavy LRM carriers, and scout VTOLs.  Shall we talk price?"

[Deadborder]

When they need to.

[General308]

It would be a low priority.  If you are getting into fights in your dropship you are probably not going to live long anyways.

[Elmoth]

Dropships generally cost more than all the combined stuff they transport. So investing in a dropships is expensive: you could double your force instead. Still, it provides a strategic asset and gets you better contract terms (and does not leave you stranded did your employer decided it).

Given that, unless you really need it, I think a Mercedes unit would not upgrade their dropships until they have grown beyond the cramped cargo capacity of the previous dropship.