Profile of Velcore

Aside from the poorly executed poll, and the veritable bm troll thread this is looking to become, I think a few of the points OP made were fine, except the RNG aspect. RNG is a dangerous entity to implement. On one hand, it can make for exciting and awe inspiring moments and turn games on a knife's edge. On the other hand, it can overtly punish a players slight mistakes or punish them through little or no intention of the opposing player. Too much, and you get more punishment and frustration than cool moments and too little and nothing really happens or is affected in a exciting way. In terms of just strategy or competitiveness, RNG CAN be accounted for, but only to a degree. You can only play with so much insurance before you just lose due to not actually accomplishing anything or building too much or whatever the instance may be.Either way, RNG has become an integral part of the game and partly contributes to it's appeal. RNG should be something that can punish players but in a 'foreseeable' way and should teach a lesson that can be avoided in the future, not just something that happens and screws you because lul rngesus hates you (although that can't 100% be removed, but it can be minimized)

Reading this thread and seeing all these opinions is reassuring. It's good to see people thinking for once.

Anywho, I'll detail my thoughts on indirect weapons of all types just to inject some more things to consider at least if not propose fixes.

Wall of text inc.

Mobile indirect such as the Stuka, Katy, Pwerfer, Calliope ect. are a fickle thing to balance/modify. As you all know balance in this game is a matter of cost effectiveness, timing, and relative power to other role units. For the raw power these options have they must have obvious and exploitable downsides aside from their cost. For the power the katy, stuka, and pwerfer have, they are relatively squishy to other units on the battlefield at the time. Their individual performance should be measured against each other while keeping cost in mind. The calliope is of course expected to perform better due to its increased cost. (however I do think it's a tad oppressive at times) Seeing as their defensive ability is relatively similar, (calliope excluded, it is considerably beefier compared) balance comes down to their offensive strength. And I believe that in the end it'll come down to trial and error.

Infantry indirect I believe to be the most tame. It can be obnoxious but ultimately provides a solid benefit for its cost at the moment in my eyes. After the reworks/nerfs that went around I feel this area is the closest to achieving a solid state of asymmetric balance. (I am referring to mortars and infantry support guns here)

Static indirect is the most questionable of the types in my opinion. Many of you have already stated solid and very valid opinions. Back in the day you threw down an arty piece in your base and just shot it, plain and simple. There were only two ways to stop it: Blow through or weasel past an entire army into a base, or destroy it via doctrinal or other powerful indirect. Relic having made the change to having to build it outside base sector is fine to me, because that opens up many more counterplay options while still keeping it far back enough to be easily defended. I don't consider brit base arty to be a big deal seeing as you have to pay muni every time to use it, making it extremely cost effective the less you use it compared to traditional arty.(weird notion eh?) Static arty is very strong in its own right, but as stated before in this thread its viable counters are so relatively cheap that by building static arty you are at an amazing risk to lose out in an exchange of their cost to counter for your cost to build. Brace could help with this, but an issue I see with this is that brace allows for a defense against counters outside the issue at hand. Sure it can help against other indirect, but if I am able to get say, infantry or armor up to your static arty, I should be able to make a valid attempt at destroying it and not have to just kinda idle around after having successfully flanked/pushed to destroy it. De-crewing with repairable crit seems valid. because it can give the option of decrewing and disabling for a few minutes versus investing and trying to destroy it entirely at risk of inevitable counterattacks assuming their arty is somewhere near their base. I do agree they need to look at arty. Both to bring back static long range into balanced viability and keep checks on the current state of mobile arty.

Thanks if you read this far.

Side note, I personally think the brit mortar pit is cancerous. Yes its a 400 mp investment and yes it is easily destroyed, but in terms of sheer cost effectiveness and ease of use its absolutely obscene. Pay 400 mp, slap it down just behind front lines and fight around it, and it literally kills all by itself with zero influence from the player. At 400 manpower it can easily pay for itself if its even remotely protected. If the opposing player doesn't get deliberate counter units or abilities for it soon, it begins to become a nightmare as it becomes stronger all by itself.
/rant