Developer Thread: Valkyrie

I've been having a problem where I sometimes spawn dead in a Valkyrie, it is usually preceded by a loading screen.
The valkyrie itself is still okay, I'm just the only one that drops dead.

it needs more firepower. The driver needs a gun too. Since it came live I have not been shotdown by Valkyrie a single time. Stopped counting how many I shot down.

Tried flying one and the mechanics is spot on, but as a pilot you feel kind a useless since you can't shoot back. I think it needs 2 weapons; one for pilot to help scare ESFs off and one for 2nd seat which can be designated to the support role.

Like I said I think it needs main gun for the pilot!

Its not a attack plane. Its a support craft. I dont see harrasers with pilot guns. If you feel useless your not flying this right. You need to focus on the battle and getting troops in and or out of harms way. If any thing take away the front turrent and give me a 6 seats for passengers. The turrent is only supposed to be use to surpress fire while you are coming in hot with a small group of guys to a target.

well support role does not to be sitting duck now does it

This thing need some beefing up IMO.
The other day I shot down 4 valks in less than an hour.


With a -flash-.

Am I imagining things or does the Valkyrie have some forward thrust when its supposed to just be hovering? Cannot maneuver my landings properly anywhere I just keep going forward when I'm only using vertical thrust.
Also it doesn't seem to take hard landings very well, not sure if that's intentional or not.

+Taking a look at the HUD, when its on a flat surface, the Valkyrie is pointed 4 degrees down, so I suppose I found why its forward thrusting, can that be flattened out? Kind of annoying.

Needs more resistance to small arms fire; especially with composite on it. Could use a little more resistance to rockets.

Passengers need some kind of protection from Flak, a Skyguard chews them up in moments. Maybe a shield on the compartment that either mitigates the damage, or absorbs a set amount - and can recharge.

Could do with door guns, of some kind, even just MANA Infantry turrets would work.

Phantasm shield would be cool, in same slot as the logistics (spawning) cert, disables all weapons while on.

Needs better air brakes, its really hard to stop and land.

Some ideas to help improve the val

Scout Radar change to Support Radar
-increase range from 200m to 450m-500m
-Can only detect vehicles and aircraft, not infantry
-reduces lockons for infantry in the rumble by .25s-2s against vehicles in the radar zone. (not easy to lock onto targets)

Composite Armor
-change nose gun resistence to match the 12% hmg and small arms have

NEW Heavy Composite Armor
This heavy armor will serve the Val better in majority of ground fighting and val vs val
-Provides immunity to Small arms and HMGs
-Increases armor resistence vs Flak by 10%-40%
-Increases armor resistence vs Tank shells/Ground Missiles/Air Missiles/Rockets by 30%-50%
-Reduces Max speed by 25KMh
-Reduces all other Performances by 10%
-Looks the same as composite until the devs make a different model visually

Weapons

CAS 14-E
This weapon is terrible gun and needs these changes to become buyable and usable by the players.
-Max dmg 143 before 50m (vs 10m before)
-Min dmg 90 after 125m (vs 50dmg before)
-Max indirect dmg from 100 before 3.5m to 100 before .75m
-Min indirect dmg from 1 after 1m to 1 after 2.25m
-min cone of fire from 1 to .5

Hellion G20
Needs some tweaks done to make it a effective aircraft gun vs ground versions
-Max dmg from 167 before 10m to before 30m
-Min dmg from 125 after 75m to after 150m
-Min cone of fire from 1.25 to .5

Pelter Rocket Pod
Not very accurate or powerful at the the moment.
-Muzzle Velocity from 125m/s to 250m/s
-Max/min dmg from 400 to 450
-Change thermals to 350m range from 50m

VLG Missile Launcher
-Change thermals from 50m range to 350m
-Missile controls need to be more responsive

Other Ideas for the Future

Vehicle Carrier for utility (think Lodestar 2.0)
-Allows Val to carry a ATV, Buggy, or Light tank at lvl 1 with sundy and MBTs further cert lvls
-Covers the ground vehicle with a protective field that allows the Val to carry the vehicle
-Slows the val down by 50KMh as well as reduce acceleration and bracking

-Can not flip upside down or it releases ground vehicle

sry about the color, my word doc was not pasting well into the reply box and could not change the color on the webrowser

The problem is that in Planetside 2, the enemy can have air superiority in any given area within about a minute, or an AA solution literally at a moment's notice.

Alright Im gonna switch it up a bit. Im grateful for the Valkyrie and I find it as a fun and intresting new option. There is no "right" way to use it yet, and im okay with that. It doesn't "need" anything. Really whatever you want is Cert-able for it. Armor, check... Stealth, check etc. Sure it might not be your favorite. And calling it a cert piñata is immature... you can make one out of any aircraft with a burster max or a skyguard. Not everything is for combat. K/D is not the only statistic. Planetside is a game that encourages teamwork on a scale unparalleled to date. And a single person can get an "epic killstreak" and "lots of kills". But only a dedicated group can turn the tide. This is all just my opinion.

All that done I do have a few questions to the devs regarding the Valkyrie.

Will there be a seperate flight ceiling for the Valkyrie?

Are their any short/long term plans for the Valkyrie or other new vehicles? And if so, could you elaborate?

Thanks in advance all and I look forward to a response.

fact check: you need 2-3 of those to kill a Lib before it just flies behind a very distant hill.
Infact you need atleast 2 just to kill an ESF unless it came within 100m of you and only flew in a straight line


(pubber A.A., Ie: couldn't afford the extended mags/etc...)

I was just curious if you guys at SOE have plans on making the Valkyrie the new base line standard for all the vehicles, because even though it falls short even as a troop transport role which most people may as well just use the galaxy or sunderer for this purpose. I guess what I'm trying to ask is if you guys are going to nurf all the other vehicles to be on par with the Valkyrie?

Personally I'd love to see that.

Any plan to increase the Valkyrie survivability? And to add more protection to passengers? Because right now ir can hardly be used as transport vehicle so I'd say this is the first thing to fix before adding more features.
We need a Valkyrie 2.0 asap.

Buff it's survivability, but leave the weapons alone. For it's cost, and what it could do (if it could survive long enough to fly over a base), the weapons need to be left alone until we know it's effectiveness in actual combat.

I for one think the Valkyrie could use some work. I had some certs lying around so I bought the rocket pods and fully certed into them with thermal, extra rockets, extended mag.

I am somewhat disappointed with the performance. They do not perform as well as the ESF rocket pods and I think that is a problem. ESF's should be primarily for attacking air targets. There is no reason the ESF rocket pods should be better than the Valkyrie's rocket pods. The valk is bigger and slower and has less fire power. Currently the Galaxy is a far better fast response troop carrier. It is stronger, has better firepower, and you can spawn in it without using certs.

My suggestion would be to buff the Valkyrie's rocket pods to be on par with the ESF's for starters. It takes an entire volley of 10 rockets to kill 1 person currently. I think that is ridicules.

Quoted from Kevmo:

Handling: The Valkyrie does not have an afterburner and it relies on its vertical thruster more than other aircraft, requiring the pilot to keep the nose of the Valkyrie tilted down to obtain max speed. It can also yaw at nearly double the rate of an ESF.

Question: Can you fix the flying with the nose down. Would be better if it was level.


Low Flying: The Valkyrie is intended to fly low to the ground. While it’s possible to reach the flight ceiling, it’s not as fast or maneuverable as a Fighter and not as tough as a Liberator. The Valkyrie should fly low and use terrain to cover its approach.

Question: Can buff the armor, tanks hurt.

Hot Drops: Although it is a transport, the Valkyrie doesn't come with a stock ejection system. Without it, the pilot will need to expertly swoop in low to the ground in order to drop off its passengers safely. The ejection system is optional can be equipped for safe high speed and high altitude drops.

Question: Can you add air brakes so we can stop after we swoop.

Weapon Systems: The Valkyrie has five unique weapons systems. The stock heavy machine gun, a Vulcan-style anti-vehicle chain gun, an anti-personnel explosive machine gun, a general purpose laser guided missile, and an armor-piercing rocket pod.

Question: The weapons do not pose any threat at this point, any plans to buff them?

Gunner Coverage: The nose gun can aim 20 degrees up, which allows it to cover most of the area that the pilot can see. In other words, what the pilot can see, the gunner can usually hit, allowing for easier coordination. The gunner can also aim 80 degrees downwards and 110 degrees left or right.

change whatever you need to to make the valk more viable on the battlefield -but DO NOT change the flight model. It is the only helo in Planetside 2, and as a dedicated helo pilot any "reductions" in any aspect of its core flight mechanics will result in a severe loss of potential for such a fun vehicle.

Here is what I have been able to do with the Valkyrie so far on live server:



people complaining about the handling simply need to become more familiar with how to operate a helicopter, as that is the type of flight model that the devs intended for the Valkyrie -much to every helo pilot's jubilation.

What I would have liked for the Valkyrie:

Support Valkyrie (Little Bird):
* Remove hotdrop functionality from Valkyries (so they have to land / use safe landing implants)
* Make redeploy/respawn to Galaxy and redeploy/respawn to Valkyries functionality only possible if you are in the warpgate. Thus you have to be in a warpgate to redeploy to a Galaxy. This means a double redeploy for troops if they want to get straight to Gal, at which point it may be much faster to pick them up. (Part of the fun as a pilot was to actually pick people up in hot landings, and well, as long as you can just redeploy to Galaxies they'll remain superior as support air vehicle)
* Increase max speed on Valkyrie, so its quite a bit faster than Galaxies.
* Increase armor slightly on Valkyrie (making it withstand fire a bit better so you can actually land/insert troops).

Probably never gonna happen though

The rumble seats need to have ATLEAST 50% flak damage reduction.

1 burster max shouldn't be able to take out ALL 4 of the rumble seats single-handedly.