Valkyrie

"Valkyrie prepared."

- A Valkyrie pilot

The Valkyrie missile frigate is a human-designed anti-fighter spacecraft.

Overview
The Valkyrie first appeared in the Koprulu sector as part of the United Earth Directorate pacification force at the beginning of the Brood War. Equipped for both atmospheric and space flight, a Valkyrie can take substantial punishment from enemy fire before suffering any core systems failures.

Valkyries are equipped for ship-to-ship combat. To this end, they employ H.A.L.O. (short for High Altitude Long Operating) cluster rockets, firing the missiles in volleys of multiple projectiles, impacting with a large area of effect. The dispersal radius of its targeting system is designed to achieve maximum damage to not only its intended target, but also adjacent targets within the blast area.

In addition to its combat role, Valkyries also function as aerial transport. Up to thirty individuals can be seated in its rear section, in addition to the craft's pilot and co-pilot. Due to its VTOL abilities, deployment and extraction are carried out quickly and efficiently.

In the aftermath of the Brood War, Valkyries entered into the service of various terran factions. However, the precedent for this was in question; the Brood War had revealed critical weaknesses in terran anti-air capability. Valkyrie and Wraith formations proved to be an unwieldy combination against agile zerg airborne organisms. With the shortcomings of ground to air support from the goliath also made clear, research led to the development of the Viking; a more flexible craft which could take over the Valkyrie's air-to-air role.

Despite the advances in technology, Valkyries continue to be used by the Terran Dominion after the. Other factions, such as the Alliance, have used them as well. Though they largely fell out of use during the Second Great War, the design of the Valkyrie would later be reused by the Terran Dominion as the basis for the Liberator.

By 2512, the Zerg Swarm salvaged the technology within Valkyries to create rudimentary psi-to-voice communicators in order to communicate with terran vessels. Abathur used these devices to relay orders to his renegade chitha during the One-Day War.

StarCraft
The Valkyrie fires rockets in salvos of eight. Each rocket has a base damage of 6 (explosive) and causes splash damage to enemy units within a 3x3 matrix around its detonation. The rate of fire overcomes the weakness of the damage type against small- and medium-sized targets. However, since target armor affects each rocket individually, high armor units such as battlecruisers and carriers are particularly resistant to the Valkyrie. Valkyries are best used against tightly packed groups of low armor targets, similar to the. This makes them especially deadly against wraiths, mutalisks, overlords, guardians, queens, corsairs, shuttles and dropships. They are not very efficient against groups of scouts however, since the scout has an additional 100 shield points along with its 150 hitpoints and the scout's missiles being one of the most powerful in the game.

The Valkyrie, unlike most other air units in Brood War, cannot fly away before it deaccelerates, since the firing animation is longer than the amount of time it can maintain speed. This makes it impossible to harrass against a defended base with.

Valkyries have very resistant armor too, making it survive fairly punishing damage from ground units.

If the sprite limit has been reached on a map the Valkyrie cannot fire anymore since each attack uses 8 sprites.

Quotations

 * See: StarCraft Valkyrie Quotations

Development
Sound files suggest that the valkyrie was originally called the "frigate." During the StarCraft beta, the gunship functioned as a ground-attack bomber but never made it into the final version of StarCraft. It bore great resemblance to the Valkyrie.

The Valkyrie was later included in the expansion StarCraft: Brood War. During development of the expansion they had an ability called "Afterburners", which gave them a very high speed for a limited time and cost energy. However, it was found that it was far too easy for Valkyries to fly into a zerg base and destroy all of its overlords. To prevent the use of such a "cheesy" strategy, "Afterburners" was removed from the final release.

StarCraft: Ghost
Valkyries could be used when calling down airstrikes in StarCraft: Ghost.

StarCraft II
At some point, Valkyries were present in the StarCraft II game engine. In the final product, the viking takes its place as the terran air-to-air assault unit.

Valkyries make an appearance in the campaign of Heart of the Swarm, where they are found as enemy units under the command of Mira Han. They look and behave remarkably differently however.

Known Valkyries

 * Anglia

Known Valkyrie Pilots

 * Captain Ansel
 * Lieutenant Commander Fleet

Confederate Valkyries
In StarCraft: Ghost: Nova, the Confederate Annihilators used a "stealth" Valkyrie to assist in their raid of Fagin's headquarters during the Fall of Tarsonis. The Brood War Valkyrie was introduced by the United Earth Directorate after the fall of the Confederacy. This Valkyrie may be of an entirely different kind of vehicle from those introduced by the UED, being described as being "used as both an air combat vehicle and a troop transport-sat thirty in rear section".