I have been putting in quite a few hours into the Valkyrie over the past few months, certainly not more than some of the more dedicated pilots, but definitely more than your average player. One of the biggest issues I have with the Valkyrie is it is pretty much inferior to the Galaxy in every way.

You want to carry troops? The galaxy carries more. You want to fly into an area with a lot of fire? The Galaxy will tank far more damage. You want to carry MAXs? The Galaxy does that. Provide close air support? The bulldog is better than every weapon the Valk has.

This is a major problem that really has two facets:

1. The Galaxy and Valkyrie fill the same exact role

2. The Valkyrie is not adequate in its role

But first, a few general things

Squad Deploy

The current Valk change on test is actually a bit unsettling to me, as it is a massive missed opportunity. Squad spawning needs to be a built in, passive feature, and the base safe falling height needs to be bumped up to around 30 meters. Squad Deploy then needs to become Safe Fall, allowing you to drop friendlies from any height, so long as you have it certed.

The turret

This is a real quality of life change, but the turret desperately needs to be stablized and have a 360 degree fire arc. The Valkyries nimble nature relies on the pilot pitching and turning a bunch to keep it alive, without a real stabilized turret, this makes it almost impossible for gunners to hit anything. On top of that, the turret cannot rotate 360 degrees, meaning if you pitch and turn too much, you are going to drag your gunner off target.

Racer Air Frame

The Valkyrie is supposed to be smaller, faster, and more nimble than the Galaxy. Its smaller, its definitely more nimble, but it isn't faster. Infact, the Valkyrie really isn't faster than anything. Getting chased down by ESFs has been incredibly common during my flight time. On an open continent like Indar, this means it is almost impossible to get away.

Survival

The Valkyrie is not all that bad when it comes to tanking damage. With the added 60% resistance on the bottom, the Valkyrie has a pretty good niche when it comes to taking damage. However, there is one exception: Explosives. A good Valk pilot can angle toward flak and small arms and can survive pretty well, but when a lockon comes along (especially apparent for the wild flight paths of the swarm) it is almost impossible to angle yourself the reduce the damage of the lockon. This will often lead to missiles ganking your health, and then flak finishing off the few % left.

• I propose a 20-30% buff against explosive damage

Differentiating the Valkyrie

To really have the Valkyrie in a good place, it needs to not try to do the same thing as the Galaxy. Opening the Valkyries secondary weapon slot and adding several utilities to the slot would allow the Valkyrie to fill new niches and help differentiate itself from the Galaxy. I have so far thought of three tools that could help do this:

Phantom Cloak Module

Adding a cloak module would be a great way to set the Valkyrie apart from the Galaxy. This would be a great tool for small squads that like to do things like back caps, that could cloak, and drop behind enemy lines. Funcitonally, it would work exactly the same as the Wraith Cloak for the flash, though it would have more juice. Squad spawn would also be disabled while cloaked.

Afterburner

Similar to the need for a Racer Airframe, the Valkyrie desperately needs some added speed. Adding a slow burning afterburner that bumps top speed up by 20-30 mph would do wonders to help it escape danger, or catch up to a target.

Two Rumble Seat AI Mana Turrets

I have seen this idea tossed around before, and it really is a great idea. Having a AI Mana turret attached to two of the rumble seats would really help the Valkyrie provide close air support, while keeping the open exposed nature of the passengers.

Providing good Close Air Support

This change largely comes down to the weapons. The Valkyrie's biggest failure as a Close Air support vehicle comes from its absolutely terrible weapons. You thought weapons like the Amp, the Warden, or the Beamer were bad? The fucking Pelter rocket pods take 2 full clips to take out infantry. This is not an exaggeration, my gunner goes through about 2 clips per infantry kill. Pelter rockets are so bad that my gunner Keirsti is #1 TR worldwide with 140 kills (number 2 or three across factions because someone was brave enough to Aurax them).

These weapons need a major overhaul, and these are my proposed changes that would put them into a much more usable position. These changed put each weapon into a specific role:

Alpha Strike weapons are intended for quick hit and run passes. They will have shallow clips and small ammo reserves. Sustained fire weapons are intended for providing support over time. They will have large clips, and large ammo pools, but will require you to trail a target longer. I am no expert on the specific numbers when it comes to balance, so some of these numbers could certainly be debated, these are more meant to give the general feel of how each weapon should be put into a role.

CAS 14-E

• Magazine size to 100 from 60

• Ammo pool to 800 from 480

• Minimum COF to .4 from 1

• COF Bloom way down (I do not have specific numbers on bloom)

• Max indirect damage range to .5 meters, from .35

• Min indirect damage range to 1.5 meters, from 1

Pelter Rocket Pods

• COF to .5 from .7

• Max indirect damage range to 1.5 meters, from .75

• Min indirect damage range to 4.5 meters, from 3

Hellion G20

• Magazine to 80 from 60

• Ammo pool to 720 from 420

• Fire rate to 750 from 600

• Change resistance values to buff AV/nerf AI, I don't have these exact values, so I can't really do it

VLG Missile Launcher

• Damage to 2500 from 1800

• Velocity to 200 from 125

• Max indirect damage range to .25 from .75

• Min indirect damage range to 2 from 4

M20 Wyvern

The Wyvern would be a special all around weapon. As it is the Valkyries default weapon, it should function similar to the Basilisk, an all around AI/AV decent weapon.

• Magazine size to 50 from 30

• COF to .45 from .5