So the idea;
Upgrades that you can buy for beacons become upgrade-able through 3 stages, with stage 1 being as they are delivered. (Alternatively, upgrade trees which bolster one aspect but hinder another - everything should have some drawback other than just price imo)
Dropzone - This one upgrades your dropship
- +Increases total available tonnage
- +Better weapons on the dropship
- -Dropship delay and flight times increased
- +Increases bandwidth (mech control slots)
- +Only takes up one navbeacon
- -More expensive and more fragile than multiple C3s
- +Increase weight class of vehicles to draw on (1 - Light & Medium, 2 - Medium & Heavy - 3 - Heavy & Assault)
- +Possibly increase likelihood of artillery or APC
- -Increase time between deliveries
- +Increases strength of orbital strike barrage
- -Increases reload time of orbital strike barrage
- +Tier 2 unlocks sensor towers, Tier 3 unlocks Turrets (or increases availability limit)
- +Increase speed of repairs/reloads?
- +Tier 3 Restores lost limbs?
- -Increase cost of repair/reload?
- +Adds a turret at tier 2
- +Adds a squad of BA at tier 3
- -less armour? or more money for opponent attacking
Well, dropzone/ship upgrades are already in place to solve a sticky issue with C3s granting both slots and tonnage, and have been discussed many times throughout development. I kinda dislike it being a 'one off' ability of the dropzone. This also gives us many levers for balancing upgrades and allows us to drop the costs of the initial purchase.