I think allowing live 7-man cons to have slot items AND 7-man is way too overkill. The survivability increase with DPS increase plus all the extras of 7-man are too powerful to co-exist with slot items fairly.
7-man cons are easily one of the best upgrades in the whole game. So much so that it makes doctrinal items (that were previously considered "good") like PPSh or SVT40 cons less desirable.
If slot item cons with the upgrade is to be considered, then the 7-man model will need a serious nerf or tone down to compensate.
I wouldn't mind a rework of Mobilized Reserves that performs like this:
* Lower cover bonus (15-25% weapon cooldown reduction instead of 30%)
* No extra man
* No cheaper reinforce (current reinforce time bonus is okay)
* Revert locked behind tech back to T4
* Allow for slot item/doc upgrades to be used (PPSh should take 1 slot size)
* Global upgrade for all Cons
I also wouldn't mind seeing Mobilized Reserves auto-unlocking molotov+at nade if they weren't already purchased, but hey, that's just me.
I agree that because 7 man cons are so good they are distracting from doctrinal upgrades, which in turn makes doctrinal upgrade based Conscript builds less desirable which makes fewer commanders viable which makes Soviets less diverse to play.
I say change the mobilize reserves upgrade to be a stepping stone upgrade that is comparable with other upgrades but much less good on its own. Still worth getting on its own, but synergizes well with other upgrades too without being op.
Remove cover bonus, lock to tier 4.
Give back one weapon slot that can be used to get a doctrinal upgrade or pick up a dropped weapon.
Also reduce the power of the doctrinal upgrades slightly so that when combined they aren’t too strong. This could take the form of simply giving only 2 PPShs or 3 SVTs for those upgrades. No change needed for the PTRS package since it’s an AT upgrade.
The result is that:
Mobilize reserves is slight weaker alone.
SVT or PPSh upgrades are slightly weaker alone.
SVT or PPSh + Mobilize Reserves is slightly stronger than Mobilize Reserves is currently on its own but without the cover gimmick and only at short range for the PPShs. SVTs can remain an all range buff as it is only in one doctrine and should still be weaker at short range than PPShs.