Developer Thread: Valkyrie

Nothing that goes into PS2 is final =)

We plan to constantly review our vehicles and do passes on them occasionally. It's just how our game evolves over time and an advantage we have over offline games.

Oh no It wasn't something I expected to happen straight away .. It would just be nice if things became a little more specialized and required a bit of thought and planning before pulling .. At lot of said thought or planing is removed atm because things are to good at multiple roles ..

And ofc the more specialized something is the more it leaves space for the introduction of new items / vehicles in the future ( long term ) to fulfill a certain niche ..

I had a couple questions:

• Will the valkyrie be offered an increase in vertical thrust or afterburners?
• Is it possible to change the landing mechanics to be more sensitive at very low speed? I have trouble getting the gear to pop out.
• Is there an ETA for when its going to hit live?
• Finally are there any plans to increase resist bonus on composite or on the stock vehicle?

Thanks!

Medic's and Engineers in the Valkyrie
-Would a medic's be able to heal fellow passengers with there triage ability?
-Would an engineer be able to repair the vehicle similar to how the can repair the buggy?
-Would an engineer be able to drop ammo inside the vehicle for fellow passengers to benefit from?

You can already test these yourself on PTS. I'm pretty sure triage works, I know first hand that engineers can repair the valk from the rumble seats, I've personally saved valks with a sliver of health as they flew away. You can also drop an ammo box inside and it works, however the ammo box screws up thje flight model and makes the valk very unresponsive and prone to crashing, don't do it.

Yes, we're adding seats; no, not for certs. They will be rumble seats.

It's on the list but not likely fixed for launch; we'll see if it comes in.

From reading a few of your replies it seems that you are trying to steer away from making it a " Flying Harasser " with to much fire power and influence within a single unit .. Is that Correct ? ( I hope so )

Is allowing engineers to drop AT mines from the Valkyrie an idea the spawned from the video of Dominoes delivering pizza from a quadricopter?



(BTW: Mac n' Cheese pizza with bacon, jalapenos, and BBQ is delicious)

So 4 rumble or 2 internal and 2 rumble seats?

Just asking to make sure, even though you said rumble seats. I like that.

For many, making something that looks so unrealistic IS sacrificing looks. They aren't willing to suspend their disbelief that far. It's like playing a racing game with triangular wheels, it just looks silly and impractical.

TYVM for meticulously answering all of these.

Could you help us understand why these Priorities are being considered in this order??
Are you implying that 4 rumble seats + Afterburners has less balance Hurdles right now than Cloaking is expected to?
I'm only bringing this up because you've said TWICE now that one of its main roles needed to be Spotting

And is the slower movement speed of it actually a BUG with it stuck in "Hover" like most people are saying, or is that its intended forward acceleration / velocity? Players keep claiming it's a bug, but they haven't pointed directly to any DEV confirmation of it yet.

pretty sure that is intended

Hey there, I've already created a video about the Valkyrie and my opinions on it. I understand some aspects of it are broken right now on the vehicle itself. Such as it's thrust and some parts of it's design. But overall I am disappointed by it's intended role as another killing vehicle. And what is currently shown, doesn't offer any support roles. Which is a deep disappointment.

Some of the major questions I'd have to ask, is why can't I turn the camera how I wish in 3rd person. And why is the cockpit so limited vision wise? With the low FOV and the constricting camera, I can't see myself using the vehicle much.

After a session flying Valkyrie for a bit, my chief concern is that in order to achive max forward velocity I had to nose down so far that I couldn't actually see where I was going. Is this going to be corrected, or some kind of workaround put in? Because there's no afterburner it's going to have to be flown very low, literally tree top level, and this isn't feasible with the current FOV.

With the addition of the Valkyrie, has the dev team considered specializing the roles of the other aircraft? For instance, currently, the ESF functions as both a fighter and light close range ground support. Have you guys thought about making the ESF more of a dedicated fighter, and giving the light close range ground support niche to the Valkyrie?

The question feels vague, so I'll elaborate: I think the ESF is the one with more hats than necessary. If you gave it the role of dedicated fighter, and made the Valkyrie a dedicated close range support gunship and small troop transport, then the Valkyrie would have a place. I understand that it's still early, but as it is now, the Valkyrie is a smaller, weaker, slower Galaxy which holds less people and can't be spawned in. If its sole utility is as a transport, it is to the Galaxy what the Harasser is to the Sunderer. Giving it a role currently filled by the ESF (and adjusting the Valk's armament, speed, and resistances accordingly) would give it the utility it needs to be desirable to use. It certainly feels more like a close range support gunship than the ESF does, and those usually also function as small troop transports. One example is the Bell UH-1 Iroquis, which carried a hefty armament, as well as being able to carry 13 people. Those two hats are usually worn together and compliment each other well.

Thanks for reading. Sorry it's so wordy.

Fly an engineer in a rumble seat near a Gal/Lib/ESF = mid air repars. Engi can even drop ammo from the rumble seat, and drop explosives / mines.

In the past, a flak max shooting at a landed galaxy surrounded by infantry did massive damage to the infantry, while a flak max shooting at infantry not near an aircraft is almost useless. Have the resistances been tweaked since then?

I've toyed around with the valkyrie on the PTS for a few hours the last few days, and here are some of my questions and concerns:
- The speed, it's too slow, there's no silver lining on this one. I like the idea of having to use vertical thrust to get a good amount of speed out of it, but the valkyrie should at least be able to keep itself in the air using normal forward thrust. I'd say up the forward thrust a bit so it doesn't plunge to the ground, and up the vertical thrust a lot so it can reach speeds that surpass that of the liberator when flying properly. The question here is: How are you guys going to fix the speed problem? Will you just change the flight model to that of the other air vehicles, or will you make adjustments so that it can go fast enough in hover mode? What's your favorite option out of the two?
- The cockpit visibility. I know that this has been brought up a few times, but are there any plans to adjust the cockpit so that you have full visibility? The metal bars in the middle of the glass are currently very obstructive and I'd love to see these removed.
- 4 seats not being enough. Looks like you guys are already working on giving it 6, thank you for listening to the community! Truly appreciated.
- Rumble seat vulnerability to flak. I know that this is supposed to be a risk factor of sitting in a rumble seat, but my rumble seats are usually wiped by flak before my valkyrie reaches half-health. It's just a concern of mine, and I'm not sure if enough other people agree for this to actually be noteworthy, I just figured I'd mention it.
- Addition of more support options + afterburner/cloak. I heard higby mention that he would like to see an EMP blast as an option for the valkyrie, and that's the kind of cool support stuff that it needs. Make it shoot nanite healing grenades instead of bullets, drop supply crates or something as simple as the proximity repair/ammo supply from the sundy being placed on the valkyrie. On the topic of an afterburner and a cloak module, I'm all for these things. If the afterburner brings you from hover to max cruising speed faster then it's a great thing for fast troop drops and CAS. Maybe make it possible to replace the weapon with afterburner tanks, rather than making them a utility option. Same goes for the cloak, or in this case make it a utlity slot + disable the weapon like the stalker cloak does. These things can be balanced, and they would really help the valkyrie in it's transport role. So, any plans for these?

I'd like to see these questions answered. I fly ESF's and galaxies a lot, so getting a new toy that flies really interests me. I just hope that it'll fulfill its intended roles when it hits live and won't require a few patches after that to make it useful. I'm glad to see that the devs have these kind of threads, and it's even better to see that they answer all the questions.

You can't turn the camera around in 3rd person because 3rd p. is simply intended for looking at your vehicle/aircraft. As to why first person feels bad that's because the developers didn't put much work in it, and the field of view is also very narrow for a PC game.