[Suggestion] Give Valkyrie a little more speed than Galaxy

Lets make Valkyrie great (at last)!
TLDR – MAKE IT FASTER!
I have seen many buff the Valk posts – some of them quite good, some of them not that stellar. The two most requested things have been granted to the Valkyrie over the past year. These being making the squad spawn built in (after the second iteration) and adding a little more survivability (bottom armor). In my opinion one more low hanging fruit is left hanging between the Valkyrie and of it having a proper niche to live in – make it faster. At least faster than Galaxy! If you want to go really wild make it even faster than Liberator (but slower than ESF's).
As it stands currently Valkyrie is a half squad troop transport first and foremost. The problem, in my opinion, is that under majority of circumstances a Galaxy is better at it. One of the situations where a Valkyrie is a better option is a surprise precision drop from exceptionally low altitude (provided the targets of the drop don’t call out „I hear a Valkyrie somewhere“ when you are still 1 km out). That means that you are going there hugging the ground and drop your load just couple of seconds after coming visible. Making a Valkyrie faster than Galaxy (it is at the moment marginally slower than Galaxy which make it the slowest aircraft in game) would for a start help with its current niche and the main point – it would add a new niche for the Valkyrie. It would be the fast(er) half squad troop transport.
It is a low hanging fruit – just changing a number and it would give a Valkyrie an unique niche where it better than the other flying troop transport thing. I do have a number of other ideas (as do majority of other people who love to fly Valkyrie) but that is the only thing I'm asking for tonight. It is the last minor thing missing from this great aircraft to make it complete in my opinion! Edit: Adding a link to a gif which is in my opinion example of current Valkyrie niche - https://gfycat.com/FilthyFavorableKittiwake

One of the simpler solutions, I like it.

Although I would much prefer pushing the Valkyrie in a CAS role by giving it the option to replace it's rumble-seats with pilot-controlled weapons.

Oh there has been a lot of great ideas posted over time which would be cool on Valkyrie (or some new platfrom even focused on close ground combat). My personal preference would be keeping Valkyrie focused on troop transport and precision drops and just have another, say, two man flying thing to farm ground. Although ofc I do agree than a number of Valkyries current weapons could use a good round of polishing.

That said, the idea of the present post is that as it stands currently that little more speed is what is in my opinion between Valkyrie and of it being the best tool for one specific niche which could be "its thing". In combination of its great agility a little more speed would enable it to be truly the faster (but also more fragile) transport option.

Indeed, this is one of the things we've requested quite frequently.

We've never gotten much of an actual response to any thread on the Valk, to my knowledge, either in the giant threads or in the small threads like this one. Its clear that there listening to some of them.

But we've never gotten a clear iteration of what they envision doing with it. Which for most vehicles, in their finished state, is just fine. But the Valk has always felt unfinished and out of place.

So they definitely need to address this.

My concern is not simply that its only as fast as galaxies, but rather that its dramatically slower than liberators.

I can see the argument for making it a fast (faster) light assault carrier for a squad of plantemans that is able to give air support after delivering them. For some reason though, I mainly see them wallowing about over big battles looking a bit lost or trying to do ground attack with the libs and esfs.

As a G2A fan I do find them more durable now but as they are too slow I regularly get more than one shot at them and quite a few go down because they are attracting fire from many directions. IDK why they are not immune to small arms fire myself - they are armoured against RLs after all.

The balance betweem speed, protection and offensive power doesn't seem quite right but then, they're armoured transports aren't they so isn't it really between speed and protection? (please excuse me if this is a stupid question as I don't fly, I just shoot at flying things).

I don't think players have got the hang of group transport generally............I rarely see a Sundy with more than four in it either, and that includes the driver and two gunners

It's one of those rare birds that has a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling. There are lots of interesting things that you can make it do.

It has been noted to me, however, at some points, that there are things that apparently only I make it do.

Whether that's a benefit or a hazard is an open question, largely depending on where you sit.

When it first went onto test server it was indeed faster and had access to an afterburner.
Not sure what they saw on test that made them remove the AB....

I agree. Good point.

Really? Do you remember when this was?

id like to see the Valk get about a 10% increase in vertical thrust, it should add enough speed and make it a bit more agile too.

they should never give the pilot control of the guns, it would be way too powerful and lib pilots would rage quit.

I thought it was when it released on test, but looking at the notes / discussion from that time i appear to be wrong.
I could have sworn it had AB at one point, must have dreamt it......

I agree. I find it a little weird that the Valkyrie is considered a transport and 'fast attack' vehicle whenever it doesn't move any more quickly than the liberator or galaxy. It would be like the harasser not being any faster than a sunderer.

I would have to point out that the other flying transport is both immune to small arms fire and marginally faster than Valkyrie. On top of Gal having such an hp pool to be able to even kill sunderers by ramming when the stars align right.


I am not asking to buff the Valk's hp pool or resistances with this. In my personal opinion it being a fragile is part of its flair and a cost what it pays for being the cheapest flying thing. I just think that on top of being vulnerable to small arms being also the slowest is a bit too steep price to pay for being the "cheapest" - nanites as it currently stands are free and plentiful and a nanite cost of a thing is not a balancing factor I would even say.

Coming from EVE Online that is actually one of the things I would like to emphasize that "cost" should not be a balancing factor. As EVE devs found out first hand after introducing Titans taking thousands of manuhours to construct thinking "there will be no more than three of them in game" - a year later there were close to 100 of them in game. Fast forward few more years with snowballing "quick fixes" to a situation and "tiericide" happened (making all items have unique role in game, as opposed to be just "better" than the "cheap" variants) - that is when that phrase was presented in one of the devblogs. Cost is not an balancing factor on its own even if it takes effort to pay that cost - even more so in a game like Planetside where paying that cost does not involve any effort whatsoever.

Yes, I think I mentioned in my post that I thought it was strange that the Valk was not immune to small arms fire. And it is no problem for me if they were a bit faster (and / or being more immune)...............this, from a dedicated G2A lock-on spammer

If anything, I'd prefer it if Libs and Gals were a bit less difficult to hurt. I hit a particulalry dumb Lib driver with 4 rockets the other day before he even noticed where the shots were coming from and just flew off (then came back fully repaired ofc).

I'm not a huge fan of buffing the Valk in any way until they address the Valk sitting at flight ceiling with a squad of drifters armed with C4. I mean, it's a really fun tactic, but it just ***** all over any ground vehicle fight.

I'd be a huge fan of making it faster and adding features if they removed the ability to spawn into it as an LA, even though I do love drifting C4 onto the Chinese prowler zergs on Connery.

Players first should learn to use thrusters for more speed before they make any aircraft faster. I honestly barely see any people using this, no matter if for Valkyrie or Galaxy.

And Valkyrie is faster than a Galaxy. Not sure about the top speed (I think it is pretty much the same), but it has a much faster start and can maneuver much better.

I wouldn't mind if they gave Valks an afterburner or whatever, but I don't think it's necessary.

It's not. Sometimes you can edge it out, but doing so requires flying sideways. Which impedes flying ability.

The issue is that it diminishes viability. You can either carry 11 troops including maxes with a high health pool, or you can carry 4-5 troops and no maxes with dramatically less health and get there at the same time.

I get a feeling you might not have actually flown both Galaxy and Valkyrie in person recently. Btw both can use the same technique of flying sideways tilted down using upward thrusters for a bit of extra velocity - its a standard way of flying the thing once a pilot has gotten the hang of basics of flying Valk/Gal. The velocity difference remains although I must admit its pretty marginal - but the Galaxy really is faster. As elaborated in my first post I'm aware that Valkyrie has better agility but it is not, in my opinion, sufficient advantage in vast majority of situations to pull Valk over Galaxy. Giving Valk extra Velocity over Galaxy would give it a clearer role where it's "better" than galaxy - that being close to the ground high velocity precision drops if speed is of essence with up to half a squad.

I like flying a Valkyrie. What I do not like is feeling a bit guilty when pulling one because I'm not pulling a Galaxy which would be a better tool objectively speaking. Unless I'll have to drop people off at tech plant balcony where you can land with Valk but galaxy does not fit. Even without a membership nanites really are not an issue enough to pick one over the another. With membership you can basically chainpull galaxies which I have had to do sometimes as well if the squad must reach a point ASAP and there is heavy enemy air presence.

The difference between Valkyrie and Galaxy is that a Valkyrie is not merely just a vehicle to drop randoms, it is a vehicle for very specialized players. It's not a good transport for platoons. There a galaxy is objectively better mostly, but it can be very good for a small troup of players who really know the vehicle.

You always have to remember that a Valkyrie can become almost invincible and can completely wreck vehicle zergs with the right crew. That's why it's a difficult to balance vehicle. A Galaxy is for zerg drops, but a Valk is for stealth drops. It's also much better to attack more precisely than a Galaxy. It already has a role.

I have to disagree with some arguments in there while I do agree to certain extent with the others. Allow me to elaborate.

From my viewpoint its not that Galaxy is for zergs and Valk is for specialists. I would argue that to make use of Valkyrie one needs a squad of specialists. There is a difference. The same squad of specialists could be more effective in the Galaxy if they would choose to use one instead of Valkyrie. But there are certain niches where I do think Valkyrie is better option which I have highlighted in the previous posts - so I fully agree with the statement that Valk is a "stealth" transport, i.e., a thing that does a low pass in the point during the last 20 secs and throws 5 or 6 mans with clown camos directly at the point. But Galaxy can do that as well if we are objective. It handles a bit more sluggish but the difference in real in game scenarios is negligible in practice as far as transport time between, say, 1 km distance goes.

With the right crew Liberator is actually better at wrecking vehicle zergs. Or if you have 6 mans (the theoretical 4 engineers repping the valk scenario) the same 6 man in two liberators would do much more much faster. OR is dropping mans on the zerg to C4 stuff the Galaxy has practically the same velocity and greater capacity/hp to make a pass and actually survive to get back into cover if there happens to be someone competent enough to look up.

So to summarize the reasoning why I'm asking for a bit more speed for Valk. It's a great jack of all trades but pick any niche and you have something that can do the job better. Giving it a bit more speed would make it in a niche which it already sort of fills (quick stealth transport for precision drops with half a squad of "commandos") the "best" tool. It would remain relatively fragile, still vulnerable to small arms fire, but if you need to get there fast it would be the best - with a little more fragile tin can than Galaxy.