Do grounded DropShips conducting surface-to-orbit fire suffer a +2 hit penalty per atmosphere hex? Per the rule rationale below, ground batteries have weapons optimized for the local atmosphere, but the DropShip is just another spaceship, thus shouldn't have optimized sensors/weapons, or is it assumed to calibrate during/after landing?
Having DropShips suffer the penalty would make their fire all but worthless, so I'd assume they get the same benefit as ground batteries, but the wording of the below rule could do with improvement, perhaps removing the mention of WarShips and just stating that the surface-to-orbit fire can better adjust for local atmospheric conditions.
SO p105:
To-hit modifiers for firing through atmospheric hexes do
not apply for surface-to-orbit attacks (unlike WarShips,
which are not designed for orbit-to-surface fi re—though
they can be used in such attacks—surface-to-orbit
weapons systems are optimized for local atmospheric
conditions).
