You should carry over your scripts modifications toward the 16.2
If you didn't make until now, I suggest that every time you gonna modiffy something in essentials, you copy/past that modifications onto a standalone .txt
Doing this, you should be able to upgrade to the lasted essentials version without any problems and without losing too much time. Only needing to copy/past the modifications in your "backup .txt" into the lasted essentials version.
And I suggest that you make backups of your game, atleast the data folder and PBS ones, before going for a new essentials version.
I don't know other ways to upgrade the game, sorry. This is all I could think of =/