Profile of Vipper

I disagree with most of this post.

Most doctrinal / non doc upgrades do compete though. Can't have an lmg and g43s or 5 man grens, no stg + lmg overs either. It's fine for it to compete as it offers a choice. Saying that doctrinal stuff shouldn't compete with non doc stuff sure puts everything in doctrines that isnt an ability into question.

There are some differences in your examples:
G43 changes the role of grenadier from static long range to mobile far to mid oriented
5 men upgrade is simply superior to Lmg

Increased vet alone isn't enough for cons when things like stgs and lmgs are handed out like candy
Perhaps taking the cover bonus and linking it to oorah to add munitions drain could work as a way to tone down the 7 man upgrade but I feel it's necessary AND on theme (which is quite the feat for something added post release) for how cons are supposed to operate. It brings a much needed QOL bonus to merge in that you won't lose a vital vetted squad because a model drops at the wrong time.

Sure you would pay less for dropping models and the upgrade would be cheap (at that point it should just be a core side tech though instead of squad by squad) but it doesn't change the fundamental problem of cons being drastically outgunned by units that get weapons AND vet while they only get vet.

My suggestions is to keep both XP and reinforcement discount. The discount particularly would help PPsh have reduced bleed in late game.

As for the ppsh / hit the dirt... I don't think separating them and reducing the power of thir doctrines is a good change either. Many of the doctrines that had HTD previously were sorely underpowered and underused. They greatly benifited from the merge and separating them again won't do anything any good. Though the ppsh could take a slot I do agree.

That is commander design issue. Actually the game should have abilities of different power level so that total power level of commander are about the same.

From my point of view combining a defensive ability like "hit the dirt" with an offensive one like PPsh make little sense and should be avoided.
(actually I would rather have hit the dirt replace ourah for conscripts solidifying them as a "defensive" infatry and ourah moved to redesigned penal solidifying them as an "offensive" one but that is just me)

updated to vet 1.3

"Conscripts

Seven man conscripts were performing slightly too efficiently for their cost

-Reload cover bonus from 7 man removed.

In order to slightly reduce strength of the Mobilize Reserve upgrade, the reinforcement reduction has been slightly lowered.

Mobilize Reserve reinforce reduction from 3 to 2; changes reinforce cost from 17 to 18"

My suggestion would to to actually removed the 7 men.

Imo the 7 men upgrade is badly designed.

I currently "competes" with other doctrinal upgrades since it mutually exclusive.

I would test removing the extra model and reduce cost to 10-20MU (or make it passive), remove the cover bonus and leave XP gain and reinforcement reduction.

In addition PPsh now take a weapons slot, "hit the dirt" becomes a separate ability, Weapon Drop is simply completely redesigning or removed.

Well, it’s possible, but the weapon bonus always works regardless of the attack / defense or cover / out of cover, the 7th person bonus accuracy works in the cover, and it’s problematic to find a cover 3vs3 or higher with constant artillery fire when the whole map is one big red cover. Maybe this is just my bias, but my game experience tells me that weapons is better than the 7th person.

The late battle fiend in 3vs3 and 4vs4 is actually filled with cover since rocket artillery and other explosion create crates of yellow cover not red which is enough for unit with cover bonuses to benefit form it.

MG-42, Bren, Vickers, Schreck, Bazooka with any of these weapons. Conscripts will be better than the 7th person. I prefer an aggressive style of play with significant microcontrol. So a weapon upgrade is more useful to me than a bonus of accuracy from a static state.

That makes little sense. All the weapon you mention require the conscripts to be stationary to fire them, actually 7 men conscript on the move would have more DPS on the move than 5 men conscript on the move +1 weapon that does not fire.

I do not need this illusory merger bonus. I need a normal basic infantry, and this right is called basic infantry, it goes from patch to patch from Conscripts to Penal and vice versa, because it is impossible to make two starting infantry units equally useful (no faction has such a stupid design), because of this we come to the strange concepts of the 7th person inventing strange roles for them. And I continue to think that we should remove one infantry unit and make the remaining unit competitive for the starting infantry of the remaining factions.

I do agree that Penal is design is problematic.

Tiger - All variants
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Veterancy 2 now adds +30% turret traverse speed

Generalist Medium Tanks
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Panzer IV, Panzer IV Command Tank, and Panzer IV J

Target size from 22 to 20

Again I very pleased to see that there is an attempt to make medium tank perform better. On the other hand I am not sure if this change will actually be helpful in meaningful way.

Part of the problem is not that generally medium tank are not performing adequately but that TDs can damage them (both hit and penetrate) with very high probability even from max range especially when vetted.

So imo the problem has more to do with accuracy of TDs and less with target size of vehicles.

Here are some numbers of Chance to hit with a natural hit not counting collision hits (range and probability)

SU-85 30/90% 60/80%
Su-85 vet 2 30/118% 60/104%

M36 30/90% 60/70%
M36 vet 2 30/118% 60/92%

FF 45/143% 60/88%
FF vet 3 30/143% 60/144%

Note that practical probability of scoring a hit is higher due to collision.

So imo one has to check the accuracy of TDs and their accuracy vet bonuses and if there is an issue with "super heavy tanks" they could get a target size increase.

Heavy Panzer Korps

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Now provides reduces the reinforce cost of Pioneers, Grenadiers, and Osttruppen by 2
Reduces the reinforce cost of all team weapons by 10%
Increases the capture and decapture rate of all Ostheer infantry units by 25%

An interesting approach (during the 7 men upgrade debate I had pointed out that it will probably lead to Ostheer getting a similar bonus). Need to test more before providing additional feedback.

One of the issue I would like to point out is the difficulty to gain veterancy for Pioneers especially after the first minute of the game. Maybe they could receive some sort of XP value reduction or an alternative way of gaining XP maybe when building structures like mines/bunkers/buildings...