So . . . I am thinking of taking the survivors of my 1st campaign and trying to make a merc company from them . . .
Which means they awkwardly have some better mechs than they should . . . the Atlas II did not quite match the canon ones- seemed a sort of hybrid of the AS7-D and the old K model. The Royal Highlander would have a problem with FF armor, and I think they might sell those Artemis IV systems to a House or company- after all how much ammo could they get? Gauss Ammo would be easier to get since you just need a machine shop with a Lathe- should be part of your techs' kit in the first place.
They might also be heavier than expected . . . I kept the assault count down but after you take Victoria out (how did I not get the King Crab? I was careful to kill her with its legs & CT intact??) but still end up with the Atlas II, Royal Highlander, Stalker, Victor and Battlemaster out (Highlander P was in storage) with a Orion 1-K, MAD-Orion, Catapult C1, Black Knight, and Grasshopper sitting in bays. I did the collector thing so I have other heavies, mediums and lights in storage. I try to drop around 300t, need to go up so I can see other Atlas, Zeus, and Awesome which I have not seen. But such a skewing of weight was just not done in the 4SW?
Finally . . . what to do about the dropship? I thought about a Dictator which would have the capacity (and more) which could stick to the 'old crashed ship' motif . . . perhaps even a unique Dictator, something that was a abandoned testbed that crashed. I was figuring anything but the Overlord, Union, or Fortress. In place of the Leopard, I really want to go DRoST IIa for fun- maybe gunship version! Could be fun to plop them into the Andurien conflict since my mercs were lazy and took over four years to free the Reach (which would be a realistic rate really . . . if it was not for the faster HBS transit).
Some of the testbed applications for the dropship would be something like . . .
Repair cradle automation- lose X amount of mech cubicles for automated systems, re-armor, re-arm, change coolant out, or other simple things
Reloading automation- like above but limited to arming & coolant change
I honestly cannot think of much else that could be done to a DS that is not fluff to make it like the Argo.