And really rough it is. Really, this thing needs alot a work. First, lets start with some Pros; The Good: 1) Extremely nimble: This thing turns on a dime, and do maneuvers even ESFs struggled to to. 2) Wide weapon Variety: All the Weapon choices are pretty sweet, and each ATTEMPTS to fill its own role. 3) Pretty Cheap: Looks like you can pull alot of them at least. Now some Cons; The Bad: 1) Slow as a Brick, with a profile to match: For as nimble as the Valk is, it is a flying brick. Its speed is horribly low, especially when you consider this is suppose to be a Quick, Attack/Drop Ship. It needs to at least be slighty slower, if not as fast, as an ESF. 2) And as Squishy as a new born baby: Goes along with the one above. The Valk is just FAR to squishy for what it is meant to do. Obviously, the Valk is not suppose to linger like a Lib can, but as it stands, a Valk could not even make a PASS as at a base with any kind of resistance. Even with full composite, small fire melts its face off, and most AA can destroy it in 3-4 seconds. And with it being as slow as it is, thats not enough time to even attempt to get away, lest you are 400-500 meters away. The Ugly: 1) For its Wide weapon Variety, only 2 of them are any good: As it stands now, Only the Helion and the Wyrm are the only actual viable weapons on the Valk. and the Helions busted, so thats saying something. The Wyrm is kinda like a smaller Mag, higher RoF Basilisk, and is a perfect "all-around" weapon. it does not need much more tweaking if you ask me (maybe more Ammo in reserve though). The Helion, while not GREAT, Melts things up close, and is decent AA (enough to keep you alive at least). Thing is like a mini-vulcan. but then again, we've already established, its not good to get close with this thing. Now, as for the others; The Cas(?) does not know what it wants to be. The Description makes it sound like it is AA, but it seems to be AI, yet the explosives don't trigger either. The VGS(again, ?) is just flat out BAD. It needs the most work of all the weapons. Its like it wants to be Valk mounted Engi turret, but its stats are just strange. for one, for a wire guide missile, you have almost Zero control over the thing. add that to the Fact that its got one of the (if not the) slowest projectile speed in the game, and an extremely short range, means you are not going to hit anything if you are not hovering (which with its range, is just going to get you killed). It DOES have a decent fire rate, but then that just makes you spend your tiny ammo reserve that much faster. the VGS NEEDs more range (800-1000), higher BV and more ammo, maybe lower its RoF to compensate. Now the last one the is Pods. At first glance, the Pods are pretty decent. They have a higher RoF than the ESF equivalent, and more ammo, but seem to do less damage. Than being said however, they need higher BV as well. While their range is extreme, they are simply not viable to be used to defend yourself against air. ESFs can get away with it because they have their nose gun to fall back on, but the Valk has only the one. If you pull Pods, you are nothing more than ESF food. 2) The Rumble seats are pointless: There is simply no viable reason the be in a Valks rumble seat. Ammo packs dropped are too heavy to let the Valk fly right, and the angles the rumble seat are just not viable in most fights, and are not compatible with the Nose Gun. The only Semi-viable thing to do, is repair with two engis. and while that gives you some more survivability, the Valk is squishy enough, it really does not make a difference.
we tried to use it.. well, AA rockets, etc - kills passengers (engineers). meeting an liberator = death, same with ESF. So flying low on Hossin, until first rocket.
agree with slayer needs an afterburner. mounted gun cant see the rear. and the ace in the hole everyone keeps pointing at.. the rumble seats are death traps.. and it cant even pick up a max... the engi repair in flight is slow like the harraser, making it repair as fast as nanites at best. cant fit a bulldog. the laser guided missle ppl say is good is so slow a galaxy could out run it ( you might even catch up to your own missle and hit yourself lol). defencless against any other aircraft(tho it wouldnt be if you could put max on it) so recap.. afterburner, mounted gun needs to see the rear, and ability to pick up max would make this work well. ps.. dont be so scared of burster max in the rumble seats.. with the twisting and turning i really dont think they would be extremely effective. scary sure.. but not as big of a threat as ppl think.. plus only one max would have a shot at any given time. also just realized it should probly have a standard ejection system like the Gal if its meant for transport. as it sits now.. flying coffin.
Your right about the speed.. its slower then the Galaxy.. the turning is good but the cruising speed is busted no matter where the nose is pointed you drift steadily down is you do not keep the vertical thrust press. and in doing so you have to keep the nose down just to get any where leaving your gunner in a useless position. The armor needs to be slightly buffed as well. for a vehicle of that size and limited weapons you need to have some sort of protection.. it felt like flying a giant glass brick..
i dont know for sure but im pretty sure the speed and in flight drop rate are bugs that just need fixed. id hope SOE wouldn't purposely make it that slow and drop in flight.
personally, I'm very excited for the valk to come out, though I think it needs some tweaking first. we need at least 4 passenger seats rather than 2 (even 6 I wouldnt whinge at, but think it could be too much), and I'd hazard putting forward that they should all be open seats like the rumble seats, but unable to shoot (maybe 2 able to shoot and 2 unable?). I love the way it flies, though the forward speed does need to be increased substantially. regardless of whether or not it is increased the vehicle FOV for first person SUCKS,you cannot see at all in the direction you're travelling, so either the view needs to be dynamic depending on the direction of travel, or the valk's default FOV needs to be yanked up out of the stone age so we can see where we're going. even in third person (which I hate using, but it's the only option so far) I have trouble seeing where I'm going, again, if the majority of the vehicle's speed is going to be vertical, then we need the camera to move accordingly. as far as the handling? spot on, absolutely perfect. running from an ESF and a lib I managed to hook around under a bridge, flip over and perform a hasty pretend troop drop right on the point before bugging out and using a canyon to escape. and I'm the worlds most terrible pilot in planetside (though I love helicopters, and fly troop transport any chance I get in a game). either way, I heard someone say this needs to be more blackhawk, and less apache, but I disagree, blackhawks are large and slow and handle like a brick. I'd prefer something more along the lines of a huey or even an MH-6J, light, nimble, fast and able to drop off a fireteam at a time.
In its current state, it is of course too slow and too flimsy. I'm quite concerned by just how powerful the Valkyrie's teeth are. If it is meant to be a support vehicle, it needs to be less powerful and tough enough and flexible enough to provide support. It seems something is a little off with the origin point or the for lack of a better term 'pivot centre' of the vehicle. During flight, it's not much of an issue, but landing feels really funny when the whole vehicle seems to move around when adjusting the angle - especially rolling left/right. While I like the helicopter style flight, it doesn't seem to match the look or animation of the vehicle in its current state. And the lack of a stable hover means sadly, it can't be used as a mobile sniper platform. In regards to the rumble seat uses, as a TR player, I'm mortally afraid of a well organised VS valk team with lashers and the 14mm explosive machinegun or even NC with phoenixes (when they don't misfire)... I really look forward to seeing what this becomes. Hoping for a tough, fast, nimble craft with a weapon that functions as support only rather than mail-line offence.
I haven't seen this new vehicle yet but I don't think you would use phoenix's for this, too easy to dodge. lock ons are a must i would say.
