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alt.games.wing-commander FAQ
By Christopher Reid, Barrie Almond and Octavio Motta
Last Updated: August 5, 1999

Contents
Abbreviations Questions Features

Part 1 - Abbreviations

    Section 1 - Games
  • WC1 - Wing Commander 1
  • SM1 - Wing Commander 1: The Secret Missions
  • SM1.5 - Super Wing Commander's new addon
  • SM2 - Wing Commander 1: Secret Missions 2: Crusade
  • SWC - Super Wing Commander
  • WC2 - Wing Commander 2: Vengeance of the Kilrathi
  • SO1 - Wing Commander 2: Special Operations 1
  • SO2 - Wing Commander 2: Special Operations 2
  • WC3 - Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger
  • WC4 - Wing Commander 4: The Price of Freedom
  • WCP - Wing Commander Prophecy
  • WC5 - Wing Commander Prophecy
  • WC6 - The Sequel to Prophecy and Secret Ops
  • SO - Wing Commander Secret Operations
  • WC5.5 - Wing Commander Secret Operations
  • WCSO - Wing Commander Secret Operations
  • WCA - Wing Commander Academy Game or Cartoon (sometimes Armada)
  • Armada - Wing Commander Armada
  • PG - Armada Proving Grounds
  • P1 (or Priv) - Wing Commander Privateer
  • RF - Wing Commander Privateer: Righteous Fire
  • P2 - Privateer 2: The Darkening
  • WCP2 - Privateer 2: The Darkening
  • P3 - Privateer 3
  • WCP3 - Privateer 3
  • POL - Privateer Online
  • WCO - Wing Commander Online
  • WCM - Wing Commander the Movie
    Section 2 - Novels
  • FF - Freedom Flight
  • ER - End Run
  • FA - Fleet Action
  • HotT - Heart of the Tiger (WC3)
  • PoF - Price of Freedom (WC4)
  • AS - Action Stations
  • FC - False Colors
  • PS - Pilgrim Stars
  • PT - Pilgrim Truth
    Section 3 - Misc
  • CIC - Combat Information Center (wcnews.com)
  • agwc (or a.g.w-c) - alt.games.wing-commander Newsgroup
  • agwc3 - alt.games.wc3 Newsgroup
  • WCU - Wing Commander Universe
  • BOT/BOE - Battle of Terra/Earth
  • Claw - TCS Tiger's Claw
  • Excal - Excalibur Heavy Fighter
  • Vamp - Vampire Class A Space Superiority Fighter
  • Vind - Vindicator Medium Fighter
  • T-Bolt - Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter
  • Torps - Torpedoes
  • WCM - Wing Commander Movie
  • WCCCG - Wing Commander Customizable Card Game
  • CCG - Wing Commander Customizable Card Game
  • MP - Multi Player Game
  • SP - Single Player Game
  • MMP - Massively Multi Player Game


Part 2 - Questions (may contain spoilers)

Q: Where can I get details for specific missions from?
A: The Newsgroup! That's what it's there for, if you have any questions for any missions not covered here, feel free to ask. alt.games.wing-commander

WC3 WC4 P1 P2 WCP WCSO MISC.

Section 1 - Wing Commander 3

Q: How do I complete the Alcor 5 Planet Mission in WC3?
A: You must destroy all targets, fighters, tanks, buildings. You will receive the "mission objectives accomplished" message once for ground targets and again for fighters.

Q: How many endgames are in WC3?
A: Three Winning and one major Losing Engames. The three winning are determined by your love interests in the games, the losing will come up after Proxima/Sol. There are several other places where the game may end, but they aren't official endgames (like chasing down Thrakhath and not returning to the Victory).

Q: How do I disable the transport ship in WC3 misson to refuel the Behemoth?
A: Attack it until it has suffered more than 50% damage.

Q: Why is the screen pink/purple colored in WC3 or WC4?
A: You are most likely in a Nebula. The distortion effects include a purple screen.

Q: Is there any way to save the Behemoth?
A: No there is not, the Behemoth is always destroyed.

Q: Where and how do I cloak in the last part of the last mission in the game?
A: Before you autopilot from Nav 3, hit CTRL+C to Cloak. Your final wingman must be dead or sent home. Cloak again once you have descended to the surface.

Q: How do I go down to Kilrah to deploy the Temblor Bomb? I seem to face infinite waves of enemy fighters!
A: You have to activate the clocking device (ctrl-c) before the last nav point in order to reach Kilrahi. Before you enter in the autopilot to this navpoint, in the nav notes on the nav screen (N) you will find a note: "activate the cloack before entering, laddie". You must cloack and enter in the auto pilot. You'll face Thrakkath and Hobbes (if he was not killed before) and, when both are dead, enter in Kilrah.

Q: How do I get past the mission in the Sol system with a Dreadnought?
A: You can't, it's the end of the losing track. It's a nice accomplishment to do so, but you must go back to before when you jumped to the Proxima System to continue in the game.

Q: Can you view the cutscenes outside of the game?
A: There is a movie viewer for the DOS version of WC3 in the CIC Files Section.

Q: Why does Hobbes go back?
A: The scene explaining the Identity Overlay Experiment was cut out of the game. It was put back into the Playstation and 3DO versions of WC3. The scene is in .rm format at the CIC.

Q: Were any other scenes cut?
A: The CIC also has nine newsbriefs that were to act as periodic updates about the war.

Q: How can I access the Hobbes funeral scene?
A: Let Hobbes die in the Proxima/Sol systems before he goes renegade.

Section 2 - Wing Commander 4 Q: How many CDs should I have?
A: Six for the PC or Mac version, four for console. Some holders for the 6 CD versions have seven slots, but the game only consists of six CD's.

Q: Is there a faster way to get around the ship?
A: Yes, use the Map. Press M while aboard the Lexington/Intrepid.

Q: How many endgames are in WC4?
A: Four, two losing and two winning. Losing endgames include being discharged and ending up at the Nephele Bar or having Confed go to war with the Border Worlds. Winning endgames include becoming an Admiral or Flight Instructor.

Q: Is there a Senator ending in WC4?
A: No.

Q: How do I get each endgame in WC4?
A: The Nephele Bar Losing Endgame occurs when you lose Tyr 2 or choose not to defect at your first choice and are shot down. All other losing paths will lead to the other LE. The Admiral ending will occur if Hawk's morale is highest at the end of the game and likewise the Instructor Ending will come about if Panther's morale is higher than Hawk's.

Q: Can you view the video in WC4 out of the game?
A: Yes, use Ripper to rip out the Origin avi files and play them with xanmovie. Ripper can be found on the CIC files section and xanmovie on the Kilrathi Saga or Crusader CD's.

Q: How can I win the mission to destroy the Intrepid after I turn down Eisen's second defection offer?
A: You can't, you must defect the first or second time Eisen offers or you cannot proceed in the game.

Q: Where can I find the Mace, Starburst, Coneburst or Bearcat fighter?
A: All are acquired in the Speradon System. "Capture Fighters" for the Bearcat, "Capture Carrier" for the Mace and the third one will get you the Starburst and later the Coneburst. Note: you can fly the Bearcat in multiple missions.

Q: How do I disable the Concordia-Class Carrier in Sparadon?
A: Destroy all turrets, than Destroy all engines and fire until it has suffered 50% damage.

Q: How do I disable the Transport Admiral Wilford sends me after in the Circe or Speradon System?
A: You must Leech it. A few Leech Missiles or about twenty shots from the Leech Cannon will do it. Be sure to destroy the Dragons around so that Dekker can make his assault.

Q: What happens to Catscratch if I let him die/live in Circe/Speradon?
A: If you let him die, Sosa will be pretty ticked at you. If you can try to save him, but fail, Sosa wont be happy, but wont blame you. If you want to save the kid, go in for the Longbow ASAP, tractor in his ejection seat and then blow up his Avenger. Sometimes he does not remain on the flight roster however (and sometimes he does).

Q: Does Catscrash disapear after he is rescued in Circe/Sparadon?
A: Sometimes he does, sometimes he does not disaper from the flight roster, this might have something to do with your previus actions to him. However, he does not appear in the video after this.

Q: Is the Black Lance officer in the WC4 ending Chris Roberts?
A: Yes.

Q: I have the DVD version and the video pauses shortly into the first movies, what causes this?
A: This may be a plot decision pause and your choices could be cut off the screen. Hit the up or down arrow and press the Enter key.

Q: How many CDs should I have?
A: Six in the computer version, four in the console.

Section 3 - Privateer (and its add-on Righteous Fire)

Q: Can I make friends with everyone?
A: Repeatedly sending the third communications message will eventually make you friends with every faction except the Retros.

Q: That green ship keeps attacking me! What do I do?
A: You need to talk to Captain Goodin in any Mining Base outside of Rygannon.

Q: I've destroyed the Steltek drone, now what?
A: You're done! Talk to Admiral Terrell and get ready for Righteous Fire..

Q: How many endgames are there in Privateer?
A: Just one main one. However you can talk to Admiral Terrell again and get a special easter egg credits.

Q: Are there any other easter eggs?
A: In the Pyrenees System at Nav 6, Basque Base, in Righteous Fire you can pay Roman Lynch 100,000 credits to make everyone friendly towards you. Also, if you see him before killing Menesch, he'll do it for free once the Governor dies.
You can also search for tabtne.vda or tabtxe.nda, rename them to advent.bat in their or adnext.bat and execute them in a separate directory.

Q: I've talked to the Monk on Eden, but how do I find Jones?
A: You have to run in circles for a bit and find the grey moon that looks like it's part of the background. Afterburn towards it for a bit and you'll eventually run into his convoy.

Q: Can I play Privateer in Windows?
A: Sorry, Privateer absolutely will not run in Windows. You must drop to DOS or DOS Mode.

Q: I am absolutely sure I am completing the mission objects, yet I cannot complete the mission, what's the problem?
A: Make sure you have Invulnerability and Unlimited Ammo unselected, they automatically cause mission failures.

Section 4 - Privateer 2: The Darkening

Q: How many CDs should I have?
A: Three

Q: How many endgames are there in P2 and how do I reach them?
A: Three, two Losing and one Winning. If you fail to save Rhinehart's ship your diary will permanently say "Shit. Guess I'd better get used to the life of a drifter..." If you fail the mission to save Sheila Nabakov it will read "That's it, brother, the prodigal son is coming home." Those are both Losing diary entries. If you win the game, your diary will read "Time to tie up loose ends..."

Q: I can't solve the kidnapper's math puzzles. What are the Nav Points I should go to in order to try to save the Senator's daughter?
A: Nav 36, 120 (Athos), 24 then 21.

Q: Where do I get the Kraven MkIV Lasers?
A: Your only chance is when you receive an email from Ralph McCloud. Save him and then meet him at Sinner's. He will give you your first Kraven and then you will be able to purchase more.

Q: When does Ralph McCloud email me?
A: It's a random process. However, with disc 2 in the drive, there is a higher chance he'll send you a message after the main plot is over.

Q: How do I save in Privateer2
A: Open your PAD by pressing P, access the file (the computer icon), and select SAVE

Q: Can I play the DOS P2 in Windows?
A: Yes, after P2 is installed, open up the Properties of Dark.exe and uncheck "Let Program Detect Windows."

Q: Are there any cheats?
A: Yes, in the Nav Map after pressing F, typing the following and hitting enter will produce the indicated effect: "Chill Out" eliminates gun heat, "Napalm" adds nukems to your inventory, "No Talent" makes you invincible, "Pety Pety" refills your afterburner fuel and "Rep Me Up" repairs your fighter.

Section 5 - Wing Commander Prophecy

Q: Do you need to have a 3dfx card to play the 3dfx Test?
A: Yes

Q: How do I use the new missiles, Tracker MIRV, Anti-Radiation, Enhanced LRAR?
A: MIRV is a Fire and Forget missile that after a certain distance will split into 4 FF missiles and target the nearest enemy. Anti-Radiation and Enhanced LRAR missiles locks on enemy capital ships turrets and missile turrets.

Q: How do I lay mines?
A: Just select the mines as your current missile (M) and press the fire missile key (return).

Q: Which ships are the Bombers?
A: Skate T's and red Mantas are the torpedo carriers. Mantas and Stingrays (clustered and unclustered) can also damage capital ships. Any ship with a Plasma weapon also presents a lesser threat and most every ship can destroy turrets.

Q: How do I keep the Midway alive?
A: Be sure your primary targets are the Bombers. Also, check to see if the Midway is carrying damage over from a previous mission? It might help to go back and work harder in a previous Midway defense mission.

Q: How do I win the mission where Stiletto always finds the Jammer?
A: Start looking before the last Alien is destroyed. Use CTRL+T to turn off smart targeting.

Q: Which ships in the convoy consisting of the TCS Redeemer, TCS Barkley and TCS Porter can I save?
A: The TCS Barkley and TCS Porter always go down, but you can save the TCS Redeemer. However, saving the Redemeer is not required to finish the game.

Q: Is there any way to save Dallas?
A: No, he either dies on your wing if you're friendly toward him or by himself. Either way, he'll be dead before the second disc.

Q: Is there any way to save Hawk?
A: No, like Dallas, he'll either die on your wing if you attack the Kilrathi or on his own.

Q: What can I do to proceed when the "Carrier is Lost" message pops up while I'm still in the launch tubes?
A: Play Simulator Mission 6 or 7, or delete your autosave.gsw file.

Q: What is causing the message "You are unable to land"?
A: The Hangar Bays have both been destroyed.

Q: What is causing the message "Traitors never win"?
A: You've shot at or destroyed a wingman or friendly ship.

Q: Where do I fire tha targeting disk?
A: The disk must be launced at the Bridge of the Triton Transport.

Q: Why do I get sent back to "Defang the Beast" mission if I die/eject in the mission afterwards (Dreadnought Assault)?
A: That is a "double mission." You must complete both to continue in the game.

Q: How do I get to the Hellespont/Alcor System missions?
A: Fail the third G'wriss System mission, but be sure to succeed in the final (usually second) Hhrass System mission.

Q: Can I fly any of the alien ships?
A: Yes, type "alswantsmoreships" in the Simulator menu.

Q: What are some other easter eggs?
A: Try typing "moretunes" in flight to access different audio tracks and "goodtarget" to give you a different targeting system.

Q: How do I work the Nav Map?
A: Use the Z key to Zoom in and right-click on targets/nav points to select them.

Q: What causes the movies to be so choppy?
A: If the stuttering just occurs at the beginning of movies, your CD-ROM may be spinning up to speed. If the problem continues, try disabling the Full Duplex option on your sound card.

Section 6 - Wing Commander Secret Ops

Q: Can I still download SO?
A: No, SO is now only availble in WCP Gold.

Q: Will SO be sold as a standalone product?
A: No, the only retail SO is with WCP Gold.

Q: Does WCP Gold have the SO fiction?
A: No, the fiction can be found at
secretops.com however.

Q: Can I view the fiction offline?
A: Yes, the CIC has a program for doing so in the Files Section.

Q: Do we see Christopher Blair?
A: No, but Episode One Fiction mentions Blair as presumed dead and includes his funeral.

Q: What class is the TCS Cerberus?
A: The Cerberus is a Hades Class Strike Cruiser

Q: The Documentation I downloaded doesn't work.
A: Download the fixed Docs from the CIC Files Section.

Q: Why does the game ends with the message "You are unable to land"?
A: You have lost because the hangar of the TCS Cerberus has been destroyed.

Q: Is there a Guide for SO?
A: There's no official guide, but there's a CIC guide for SO written by Barrie Almond aviable for download in Word and pdf format at the CIC.

Q: How many endings are there in SO?
A: 3, 2 winning and 1 losing, depending on the results of the last mission.

Q: Which ships are the Bombers?
A: Skate T's and red Mantas are the torpedo carriers. Mantas and Stingrays (clustered and unclustered) can also damage capital ships. Any ship with a Plasma weapon also presents a lesser threat and most every ship can destroy turrets.

Section 7 - Misc. Items

Q: Is there any new WC game under development? Will it have multiplayer?
A: Yes, however no specifics have been announced officially. Keep checking wcnews.com for the latest news.

Q: Do the various WC games have websites?
A: Yes,
Prophecy, Secret Ops and Prophecy Gold do. PrivateerOnline.com was recently registered, however there is no site there yet.

Q: Does Origin replace damaged discs?
A: Yes, email dexchange@origin.ea.com for more information.

Q: How come it takes so long to get between nav points?
A: Try pressing "A" when the AUTO light is lit.

Q: Can I run Armada in Windows?
A: Sorry, just like Privateer and Righetous Fire, Armada will not run in Windows under any circumstances. You must drop to DOS or DOS Mode.

Q: Is there a way to change the difficulty?
A: In main games from WC3 to SO, hit ALT+O while in space.

Q: Where can I buy Wing Commander games?
A: Most, if not all, can be found at either cdaccess.com or cdshareware.com among many other sites.

Q: When was the Newsgroup born?
A: As near as we can tell, the first post to alt.games.wing-commander was on May 18, 1995. As of January 1, 1999, over 100,000 posts passed through the group.

Q: What is the CIC?
A: The CIC (Wing Commander Combat Information Center) is the best WCwc news site, and the home of all your WC needs.

Q: Will the timeline and the encyclopedia and timeline projects ever be finished?
A: Yes, LOAF is redoubling his efforts.

Q: Will we ever see Blair again?
A: It's is considered unlikely for several reasons. WCSO fiction mentions that Blair is presumed dead. But it's not completely impossible since he is only MIA and presumed dead right now.

Q: Why can't some weapons damage enemy captial ships?
A: Because shield and weapon technology keep iproving. Here is a list for the fighter-based weapons and if they are effective against capital ships:

WC1: ..... Guns: All ....... Missiles: All
WC2: ..... Guns: On Capships Missiles: Torpedoes, Mace
WC3: ..... Guns: All ....... Missiles: All
WC4: ..... Guns: All ....... Missiles: All
WCP/SO: .. Guns: Plasma .... Missiles: Torpedoes

Note: On WCP/SO, guns and some missles are effective against some external targets of capital ships like gun turrets, but can't damage the key targets like bridge or engines.

Q: Where can I find information about the casting of the games?
A: You can search for them on www.imdb.com

Q: Will the next WC game use FMV?
A: Origin has made no announcements on future WC games.

Q: Are there any music music CDs of Wing Commander?
A: Yes. There's the music soundtrack of WCP and the soundtrack of WC the movie. Several years ago Origin also published an audio disc.

Q: Where can I find music from the WC Games?
A: A good place to start is the music area of CIC.

Q: What about the WC Movie?
A: There's a special FAQ about it in the movie section at the CIC.

Q: WC1/2 run too fast, what can I do?
A: Try a slowdown utility like moslo or disable your cache.

Q: What is Vanhecke Cola?
A: You don't want to know.

Q: I don't have enough memory to run a WC game, what do I do?
A: Post the contents of your config.sys, autoexec.bat and a mem /c to the newsgroup and we can help. You can get your mem/c easily by typing mem/c > mem.txt

Q: How do I fix static in my DOS based WC game?
A: Add the number "16384" after the line your config.sys that mentions "emm386.exe."

Q: (a) Is Chris Reid a nick for Chris Roberts?
(b) Does he live online?
(c) Does he answer to all the messages?
a. No.
b. Somewhat.
c. No, just most of them.

Q: Does LOAF know everything about Wing Commander?
A: He probably knows more about WCU than anyone else in the world.

Q: Are there any topics I should avoid in a.g.w-c?
A: Yes, please take care with the (something) vs (something) threads, specially if it envovles other sci-fi universe, like the Enterprise vs Vesuvius or a Star Destroyer vs Tiger's Claw, etc. Also avoid repeating URL advertising, and please do not send binaries since this is not an appropriate group. And since there are different people of different tastes and points of view, let's just say our opinions on a nice way and respect the others reasonable opinions. Needless to say, talking about other subjects, even other space combat games, are not directly related of WC also isn't a good idea.


Part 3 - Special a.g.w-c Features

Homepage - The old homepage used to be at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/7595/. Now it can be found at http://www.wcnews.com/agwc.shtml.

FAQs - What you're reading now. Our FAQs attempt to answer some of the most common problems in the Newsgroup.

Poster's List (including monthly postcounts) - Posters with more than 200 posts who have been posting for a year or have 400 posts total.

Brief Top 5:
Christopher Reid ...... 23,040
Kris Vanhecke ......... 4,876
Edward Pang ........... 4,760
Octavio Motta ......... 4,677
Kelvin Lim ............ 3,893

ICQ List - We have an official ICQ List through mirabilis now.

IRC Channel - DALnet #Wingnut, the place for readers and posters of the newsgroup to relax and chat about Wing Commander.

Weekly Trivia - Weekly Trivia is posted each Sunday to the Newsgroup and can be found at the CIC.

WC5 Poll - A poll taken in summer 1996 by Gerthein Boersma on the Newsgroup and WWW to see what we wanted for the plot of WC5 (now WC Prophecy).

WC Midis - A while back Marc created some great MIDIs as a tribute to Wing Commander.

Jump FAQ - Phillip Langdale's interpretation on how Jumping works in Wing Commander.

Wing Commander 4.123106 - The incredible parody of WC4 by Gary Hladik. It took a year and a half to write and chapters were originally posted to agwc, in the end, it was over 500 pages long!

Back to the alt.games.wing-commander Homepage.


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