Because I continuously get the crap slapped out of me when I fly this thing. Please take a step back and look at its role. That is, it has none that is not done better by any other aircraft. There is only one thing I could think of to give it a strong role which people would like. Covert infantry insertion. In short. Give it a cloak like the Wraith ATV. Pilot = infiltrator Cannot shoot while cloaked. Can deploy 4 infantry. This would make up for it being a slow and lightly armored Pinata...
haha I said the same thing about it being a pinata. Though I personally think it should just be quick, in and out as a vehicle goes.
Cloak would be pretty doable, if a utility item (used in place of flares, fire suppression, ejection seats, etc.) was used. Only visual. Then, for radar detection, stealth defense frame. Nothing should silence the noise. That would take a big chunk out of any self-defense, while allowing covert insertions and actual survivability. It would bring the total roles of the craft to ONE. It's not anti-air, it's not anti-armor, and it's not anti-infantry. As far as I can tell, it is only able to destroy completely unattended and undefended targets.
Some of the logic here is being misused. Things in game shouldn't necessarily be a Hard Counter as their role. The crafts role is versatility because it's influenced so much by loadout. Anti air? Flying lockon cannon. Antiarmor? Engies dropping av mines or c4. Flying lancer, Phoenix striker nests. Since it's strength and role is versatility, it's not designed to be a hard counter to things but can play support roles in AA or antiarmor
Oh god. cloaker Valkyrie = Infinite "Flarecraft"! (One burst on the cloak and all the locks go away! Add the fact that the cloak could turn on and off about 10-20 times in quick succession and you've got an unlockable aircraft.) Also, That would change immediately with a cloaked 4 man Decimator HA squad. Decloak, two engine shots, recloak, swing around, two anywhere else (In about 1-1.5 seconds), and then the wire guided bellygun just in case someone misses. Nearly insta-kill anything on the ground short of a sundy. (And I feel sorry for anyone who ever pulls a harasser again!) Better yet, cloak, hover over MBT, decloak and have drifter jet LA with C4 hop out (0.5 seconds), poop C4 on target (1.5 seconds), blast, hop back in and make your escape. (And if you're high up enough, they'll never see you, and you can detonate after hopping back in so everyone gets XP!) Then there's tank mines... 4 guys, 5 tank mines each, and you're all in a vehicle so there's gonna be shared XP out the butt!
Sounds very exiting, they should do that. After all, two dumbfires would kill it, a single burster max can empty the valk in under 5 seconds, and if they give cloak and decloak a second delay, close lockons will hit as well.
Cloak would need refinement. - X number of seconds before cloak engages. - If you are locked you must break lock to activate cloak. Tank mines, cloaked or not is a great idea! Thanks!! Hitting stuff with a decimator is extraordinarily difficult. Its like trying to hit a target while in a canoe with someone rocking it while also in a hurricane.... On the plus side an engie can deploy an ammo pack so you can replenish.
Tank mines cloaked would be game-breaking in the right hands. Not if you're cloaked, and hovering less than 100m away, just behind and above them. Then missing would be pathetic. Now imagine them waiting behind enemy lines for vehicles in an armor column to retreat back enough to repair. Easy kills. Oh yeah, plus cloaked roadkills: hover-squashing runs on infantry, sundy spawns, and even the occasional ESF ram (Poor ESF pilots won't even see it coming if you stay at the ceiling and have your seats operate as spotters. You could cloak and charge in with enough time before they'd even know you were there. You could ram, or just decloak and let the dumbfires work their instagibs ).
But in all seriousness I've used it now and after the patch on the test server it makes more sense. It's really agile and cheap (probably because you'll be losing it constantly) but the only thing I really wish they had implemented were some kind of mounted turrets for the bay doors instead of the rocket launcher mess,it's just way clunkier than it needs to be. Imagine trying to hit people with your small arms fire during strafing runs,you'll probably get shot out of the thing more often than you'll kill someone. They could have put a splash damage mana turret on each side so you could clear the way to the point drop some people of and then protect them or extract them to cover the point.
Not cloaked mines. I was referring to the Valk. Even if there is no cloak, zipping in in front of a tank and throwing mines out is gonna be fun.
Wow. You are really good at turning solutions into problems. That's not a compliment, sadly. I solved one little cloak "problem" in about 2 seconds: being spotted or locked prevents cloak use for 10 seconds. Done. Recloak delay of 10 seconds as well. Or however long it needs to be to prevent the sillier cheese tactics. It should be as good a cloak as the Phantasm was in PS1- that sucker was fairly visible when moving, and ALWAYS made noise. Honestly, I don't think flying classes should have EVER gotten C4. People will probably do that in Valkyries about as often as they do it from Galaxies. It's hardly a new tactic. Tank mines? They take 30 seconds to arm, right? Watch where you drive and/or get mineguard. Good luck getting 2 mines in the same spot from flight ceiling.
Not what I meant, but I see where the... (Confusion? Sarcasm? Both?) misunderstanding... comes from. I mean tank mining from an aircraft that can cloak. We already see instagib cheesiness with cloaked flashes and tank mines, now le'ts let them fly and give them 4 people in the back seat who can drop mines at the same time (Plus, they can redeploy and deploy into the vehicle like a galaxy, so they can resupply at their convenience without need to land). See where my concern comes from?
I'm really good at shedding light on reality. Here's the basic principle as plain and simple as I can make it: "If it can be abused, someone will find a way to do so, and that knowledge will spread to everyone." Now let's throw in aircraft that can -for all intents and purposes- turn invisible. A flying vehicle that cannot be spotted is tough enough from the ground, let alone one that has the combine firepower of 4 infantry of your choosing and a gunner (albeit, the Valk guns are quite low power in the grand scheme of things.) At least the ground vehicle thermal optics should be able to detect them within a certain range. This would keep Valks from just cloaking and running up close enough to make their targets uncomfortable at the urinals and cheesebombing ground armor before they even know what's going on. I don't mind if they cloak to avoid AA turrets or other aircraft, but combining a vehicle cloak and an aircraft opens up a myriad of instakill capability that truly could be used for unacceptable tactics (IE, the harasser's ability when it was released to do 75% damage by boost ramming MBT engines and only sustain 10% damage itself, or the Phoenix' anti-infantry use due to OHK ability on it's release).
I really like the idea of being able to cloak while in the valkyrie. It was meant to be a dropship, but as it is right now the galaxy is just in every way superior. It has more firepower, it isn´t noticeable slower than the valk, and it can also take way more damage. So my suggestions to fix this and make the valk a viable drop ship alternative it needs a bit more tweaking: -Inbuild ejection seats(seriously, how should a dropship without inbuild ejection seats like the galaxy work?!) -Give it a bit more movement speed -Wraith cloaking device would be so awesome, and i dont think that it will be overpowerd, if you put in a delay before cloaking and decloaking. Also the weapons of the valk are already very weak, so it cannot defent itself against other aircrafts and ground forces -Rumble seats passengers should be protected from flak explosion(This is an absolute must! Come on, higby, who the **** wants to sit in the rumble seats if you die instantly when a burster max begins to fire at you) Pls if you can do this, the Valkyrie will be a viable dropship alternative for the galaxy, but it will still be weaker in combat than any other aircraft.
Yup. I did mention in a follow up post that while cloaked you could not engage any weapons. That would be fun but op. So no cloak drop of mines.
Simply being able to come close enough with the cloak for the bucket seat guys to urinate down the top hatch of an MBT (if MBT's had top hatches ) without detection, before decloaking and tank mining is going to be either too good not to be regularly abused, or the cloak will be so bad that it will be just another useless option (Like the flashlights before they were able to silhouette infils). I'm really not seeing any balance here. The moment you can cloak for even 5 seconds in a flying aircraft is the moment you can utterly decimate anything ground bound (Unless your target can cloak as well, or can fire from an infantry spawnroom).
So what's the problem then with the phantasm cloak, where you can only be really invisible if you're not moving?
If you want to be helpful, try and think of ways that the abuse can be avoided. Instead of just complaining that it would be possible. First off, it would be totally reasonable if cloak did something to the rumble seats to disable certain weapons. So no rockets or C4, probably, perhaps other things too. Tank mines take time to arm last I checked, so unless you follow them down, they're not super likely to kill things. Also in that vein, once cloak is broken... perhaps it should stay broken? Make it imperfect like the Phantasm cloak, pretty easy to see from ground troops and Skyguards who are paying attention. Once it takes damage, it has to land for X seconds to self-repair the cloak, but the time can be halved if repair tools are used on it on the ground. Also reasonable for troops to not be able to drop on things. How about if troops CAN drop out, but it breaks cloak as per enemy fire? So you can get in and get LA's onto a tank nest, but the Valkyrie has to leave without the benefit of the cloak until it can get safe and land to re-enable cloak. And the thermal thing sounds good. So: Replaces squad deploy. Cloak only usable in the air. Landing decloaks, minor re-enable penalty. (5sec? 10?) Cloak breaks on damage (A quarter clip from a rifle, or more than 5 flak shells, ballpark. An ESF that sees the cloak and fires a nose gun at it will easily do it as well.) Cloak also breaks for firing the main gun, rumble seat firing a rocket, dropping C4 or tank mines, or taking more than a couple hits. Alternate- Cloaking utility module makes rumble seats into passenger seats, or disables the 4 extra seats entirely. Cloak only self-repairs on the ground, landed, not moving. Repair tools speed process, but not required. Cloak does not apply to thermal. IR scopes can see it, as can a theoretical thermal Skyguard. Aircraft thermal does not, because nanites. (That and it would just be a little TOO easy...) Speed penalty while cloaked? Phantasm-quality. Visual from the utility module. Radar stealth from stealth defense system. Nothing stops noises. Speed is proportional to visibility.
