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Description:
The Argo is a grand ship for a small mercenary company out on the Rimward Periphery. It's also an expensive one, especially in 3028. High Lady Kamea Arano's gift to her favored mercenaries was rather shrewd, given she had a war to win; by transferring ownership, she kept her symbol while the ongoing costs were borne by someone else. All she had to do was make sure they'd come when called, and for mercenaries with an expensive ship a generous payday was irresistible. Truly, you, the Commander, were caught in her snare. Now you must bear the cost of her ambitions.

True Argo Upgrades implements the actual expenses of a Star League-era ship the early decades of the 31st century. Until the discovery of the Helm Memory Core and the technological renaissance to follow, maintaining such a ship is a challenge to say the least. A mercenary company is a capital-intensive business and the Argo only intensifies that difficulty as many of her upgrades are very expensive. The more work you put into her, the greater her capabilities become, and the more you'll pay at the end of the month.

A full breakdown of how her costs were calculated and implemented can be found here (as done under another name). Just how expensive is the Argo? As much as 1,169,728,000 CB to construct and 2,225,698 CB per month to run with all her upgrades. Fortunately for the Commander, you don't have to purchase all of her upgrades. One in particular to avoid, unless you're fabulously wealthy, is her final drive upgrade, which will leave you needing to purchase hydrogen at the end of the month to fuel her enormous speed. Without that, 1,251,198 CB is what you'll pay.

As the Commander, it's important to know your limitations. Some upgrades are cheap to purchase but add considerably to your monthly expenses. Don't commit to something you'll struggle to pay for in the long term. Good luck.

Other changes:
Provided I've done it properly,

• MechWarrior salaries reduced
• MechWarrior XP gain reduced
• Lower payouts and reputation gain for contracts
• Less salvage too
• But less restriction on what contracts you can take based on reputation
• Less ridiculous payouts and markups for factions that hate you
• Higher resale values
• Fewer nags
• 'Mech repair costs and times adjusted
  

• Contract type payout adjusted
• Jumps cost 60k (the Argo takes two docking collars)
• Rewritten descriptions for every upgrade
• Career length changed to 4380 days (~12 years) from 3028 to 3040
• By default the chance of recovering a cored 'mech is 75% (100% in vanilla)
• Other minor changes
  

Installation:
Requires Modtek so install that first to your Battletech/Mods folder (create that if you haven't already) and run the injector, then unzip the mod and make sure it's enabled in-game. It is save game compatible, but I would advise a fresh campaign or career to get a better grasp of the changes. If you do choose to use it with an established game, make sure you've got millions of C-Bills on hand if you've fully upgraded the Argo so you don't end up going bankrupt. The mod will conflict with others that modify these files:

• SimGameConstants
• ContractType
• CareerDifficultySettings
• DifficultySettings
• All of the argoUpgrade .jsons
  

For compatibility purposes, the only essential items are the argoUpgrades themselves. Just be aware that vanilla MechWarrior salaries will be a heavy burden on top of the Argo. If you want me to do a compatibility patch for another mod just ask and I'll see what I can do.

I hope you enjoy it!

Acknowledgements:

• Colt Ward on the Battletech forum for a tip about the training pods.
• Battletech Revised for giving me the idea to rewrite descriptions too.
  

Potential future update:

• Alternative post-3040 Argo costs