Concordia Close to Setting Sail

callitri has finished his extremely detailed Concordia Supercruiser model. The ship stands at about two million polygons, so there's quite a bit of interior geometry clean-up going on to optimize the model, but the exterior shape is solid. callitri has tried to share the actual file, but the size is prohibitive at the moment. This was made in Google Sketchup, which is quite impressive. Up next are textures and possibly a starbase environment for the ship to dock in.

I have only 4 gigabytes of memory and when I load the full ship I can barely work on it. Would love to make a shipyard of sorts and to make the other smaller type ships in the fleet: destroyers cruisers and such based on the Concordia's design but that's a long term plan. I am looking for some metal looking texture to start texturing it myself. I know nothing about it so I hope I can import whatever I find into Google and paint it there. :p

More Micro Mock-ups Manufactured

Here's another preview of Klavs' miniature ships. Although current technology still doesn't make large designs really feasible, the scale here is half of what was intended. Compare the tiny Super Rapier to the larger craft for real 1/600 scale. The great thing is how much detail is present in the accidental 1/1200 scale models. Since the penny-size ships came out so well, the larger designs should all look great!

They work! Except I accidentally ordered them at half scale. So they're even smaller. Amazingly enough, these little guys still hold detail quite well. Compare these to the 1-600 scale Super Rapier. Even the fragile little Dralthi laser cannons came out completely free of defects. Keeping in mind that these little ships are the size of a penny! ($0.01 USD)

Going to order a set at 1-600 scale now just to make sure they work, then I'll make them available!

Academy Is Here!

Hopefully many of you are already enjoying Wing Commander Academy on DVD. If not, here's a couple shots to salivate over! The second image adds in the two major American releases of the Wing Commander Movie DVD, plus the DIVX, movie soundtrack and old fan-made Academy DVD for good measure. The set does appear to be coded for Region 1, so Wingnuts in other areas may need to get creative to view it. It always feels great to hold a new boxed Wing Commander product!

Wing Commander Academy DVD Available Now

Happy Memorial Day

The Combat Information Center wishes everyone a happy and safe Memorial Day. While enjoying the day, remember to take a moment to remember those who have given their lives so we can enjoy Wing Commander today and into the future.

More Confed Models Made Available

Cybot078 has completed a couple more Wing Commander style ship models. In line with his previous designs, these vessels take familiar craft and embellish them with extra modifications. The original inspirations for today's designs are the popular Behemoth and Exeter hulls. Cybot's ships have been finding their way into a variety of different Wing Commander projects lately. These and many other ships can be downloaded from the CIC Forums here.

All the models I post here are free to use anything you want use them for.

Finished Fralthi Forges Forward

CMDBob is done building his Fralthi, and here's the result. The final livery complements the traditional brown/orange durasteel with blood red accents and clean white panels - a very nice contrast! Although the design is essentially complete, Bob is reworking turret designs for all his craft. A preview of the new Confed turrets is also available below.

Knew it wouldn't take me long! Here it is, the finished Fralthi! Next up are turrets, as the existing models I have for em look like crap. After that, the Exeter/Gettysberg!

EDIT: Fun fact, with this ship finished, I've hit 50% completion for the WC1+expansions ships! (and after the Exeter/Gettysberg? Time to raise hell in a Hellcat!)

Gaming Mag Excitedly Shares WC3 Information

Wing Commander III is certainly the biggest project ever undertaken in the computer gaming industry. In order to accomodate the video footage, it is being shipped on 2 CD-ROMs (no floppy version). Sales projections have set their sights on numbers well past platinum level just to break even from the game's US$3,000,000 budget.

WC3 shows a lot of promise - the new flight engine looks great, and the storyline has a degree of flexibility very rarely seen in today's "interactive movies." If Origin can pull this one off, action and non-action fans alike will be storming the doors of software stores everywhere this November.

Technically It's Called The 'Lance'

Following a series of system tests and a successful fly-under of the space station Thursday, the Dragon capsule was cleared by NASA to approach the station Friday. Dragon then performed a series of intricate test maneuvers as it approached the orbiting laboratory. These maneuvers were required to demonstrate the maneuvering and abort capability of Dragon prior to approaching and moving into a 65-foot (20-meter) "berthing box" where it was grappled by NASA astronaut Don Pettit using the station's robotic arm at 9:56 a.m. EDT.

European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers installed the capsule on the bottom of the station's Harmony node at 11:52 a.m. NASA astronaut Joe Acaba completed berthing operations by bolting the Dragon to Harmony at 12:02 p.m.

"Congratulations to the SpaceX and NASA teams," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "There is no limit to what can be accomplished with hard work and preparation. This activity will help the space station reach its full research potential and open up space-based research to a larger group of researchers. There is still critical work left in this test flight. Dragon-attached operations and cargo return are challenging and yet to be accomplished."

Some Ship Viewer Sample Shots Shown

While putting together the first version I also had your Concordia model in-engine at some point but then decided to use the Ferret for the first prototype of the shipviewer as the shading was much nicer.

Destroyer Destined for Guard Duty

I just finished importing the Ralari into FSO for Woolie's Wing Commander: Advance Guard mod. Textures are still WIP, but it looks awesome even in its current form. The model itself (including all of the child meshes) has 10404 polys. Thanks to Wedge009 for the Kilrathi logo!

GOG Talks Space Sims

centaurianmudpig spotted a new PlaySF interview with the folks at GOG.com. They discuss the state of the space combat genre and the possibility of releasing expansion packs for Wing Commander games. The GOG spokesperson cites ongoing licensing negotiations as a possible reason for their continued delay, but we can't wait!

PSF: GOG.com has a number of classic space and sci-fi games available, but do you think that the reason games such as FreeSpace are successful on GOG is because almost no big studios are making those kinds of games anymore? Why do you think that is?

Trevor Longino: There are a few reasons why I think these games don’t get made anymore; market pressure and homogenization, how gamers play games, and how we get news about games.

This takes us to our next point: how gamers play games. The people who want to play games with fantastically complex control schemes (I recall games like TIE Fighter or MechWarrior 2, where I believe I used 20 keys on the keyboard, plus my joystick, to control the game) aren’t nearly as numerous as the people who want to sit on their couch, kick back, and play a game whose controls you can master in five minutes. Take a quick poll of your friends who call themselves gamers: how many own a joystick? The answer will very likely be “not many”. At some point we left behind the joystick for the dual thumbsticks, and it’s hard to make a game for a controlling device that even people who call themselves gamers don’t have any more.

PSF: The release of some old EA games has been particularly exciting, especially seeing Wing Commander and Syndicate again? But why no expansions or speech packs?

Trevor Longino: We’re working on the expansions and speech packs, but the rights are apparently very difficult to secure; progress is going very slowly, so while I won’t say “give up hope”, it won’t happen next week either.

Enigma Mod Measures Out Confed Fleet

Exeter 360, Gilgamesh 312, Waterloo 503, Wake 500, Gettysburg 850, Bengal 700, Confederation 987 meters.

Sleeper helped me with upgrading the fighter textures using the bump map texture from Kevin's Scimitar with the decals from the Hornet.

Perhaps the pig was not too bad afterall ;)

"Sir, if we spot this ‘Fralthi’, should we engage?"

Just here to say, yes, I am alive, and the Fralthi is nearly done. I've got to finish the texture map, which is coming along nicely, then generate the height/normal map and specular map, as I do. Here, have some WIPs!

Fearsome Fralthra Filling In Fast

This Fralthra apparently belongs to clan Kiranka now. Currently I'm still using the original WC2 colours. I'm thinking about lowering saturation a little.

I said myself texturing them might ruin the simple beauty they have, but here I am doing one anyway.

I'm not very good at UV mapping *or* texturing, I hope I do them justice.

Wing Commander Saga Download Reminder

New RPG Kicks Off

When the Kilrathi fighters had arrived on an attack run, the Intelligence Officer had delivered her analysis calmly and dispassionately. She never gave her opinion - but to be honest she didn't need to. She'd been prepared to die with the rest of the crew.

Except the flag officer had decided to jump, leaving four transports to their fate... something the Kilrathi had made propaganda hay of.

Now this 'coward' ship, having survived by only one vote on the repair board, was starting to work its way back. Not going up against the enemy, oh no, they were stuck dealing with pirates.

Langer moved over to the com, calmly pressing down the button.

"All air crew to the briefing room at 1100 hours", he said over the intercom. Then he went to fix himself a sandwich, filling it with some of the tuna his father's company produced.

Vega Sector Reinforcements Inbound

I've ordered prototypes of these, just to make sure everything is working before I release them to you guys. :) I'll also update the single Scimitar when I confirm that the prototype is working.

All ships are scaled to their correct sizes, except I actually made the Dralthi a couple meters shorter than cannon (28M) since it already looked to big by comparison. The Super Rapier has similarly been scaled up slightly, reflecting a slightly larger spacecraft. Mostly to keep the canopies the same size as modeled.

The 1-600 scale ships wind up being nearly the same size as some of the old Star Wars action fleet Micro Machines, and conceivably if you had any of those little stands remaining, you could drill a small hole and mount them on a stand.

Hmm... Might have to design a stand...

Academy Just Two Weeks Away!

Wingnuts now have less than 14 days to prepare for the release of Wing Commander Academy on DVD! All thirteen episodes of the television series will be available in this set starting on May 29, 2012. Barnes & Noble and Deep Discount have some of the lowest prices, and there's still time to order from Amazon.com with release date delivery!

A spirited and elite corps of novice fighter pilots attends the Wing Commander Academy in the year 2655. Often thrust into battle against the mighty and ruthless Kilrathi race, the crew must master daring manoeuvres and veer through constant danger to save the world. Sedate and honorable Maverick, devil-may-care and impulsive Maniac, and serious-minded, cautious and competent Archer make up a quarter of the cadet wing at the academy under their brilliant, if argumentative, captain, Commodore Tolwyn.

Scimitar Prepares to Slice Up a Dralthi

Exotic Designs Hit the Spacelanes

The Olympia, one of Lar's designs: a frigate with a full hangar. I was aiming for a coast guard setup.

The Cougar, from the earlier post.

Peagasus, one of Aldo's models, scaled down from a FS2 destroyer to a bomber size.

Fleets Increase Presence in Enigma

Echo Sector Reopens

Greetings Crusaders! Welcome to the all-new Echo Sector website. I’ve been wanting to redo our website for years now, but the attack to our vulnerable, out-dated website by a script kiddie recently kicked me into overdrive.

Va ka Garga ka naru ha Garga

And now.. one big kitty

Kilrathi Destroyer Continues to Take Shape

The model itself is largely based on the game sprites (like the Rapier II in Hostile Frontier), but it also draws inspiration from the Claw Marks drawings and other fan art as well.

Wing Commander Stories From The Fatman

Have you played one of the following: Wing Commander, Ultima Underworld, The 7th Guest or the 11th Hour? If the answer is "yes," then you've heard the Fat Man's work! The Fat Man--aka George Sanger--is the greatest of all PC game audio composers and pretty much invented modern game audio. Plus, he's an epic storyteller and one of the original Cool Dudes.

• Matt Chat 143: The Fat Man (George Sanger)
• Matt Chat 144: The Fat Man Talks Business
• Matt Chat 145: Why The Fat Man?
• Matt Chat 147: Wing Commander, Ultima Underworld, and The 7th Guest with The Fat Man

Super Rapier Models Ready To Go

It's real, and it works! Really surprising how much detail came through. The Super Rapier is now available in 1-600 scale! You'll note that the new version has the guns moved further outboard, just like the SWC version.

Long range scanners are also picking up some sort of "flying pancake".

WC Saga Soundtrack Released

As an extra for all of you, we’ve got just what you need if you can't get enough of the game - we have decided to release the music of Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn. This huge compilation of all-new music was created by our team of talented composers: Jeff Ball, Tim Janssens, Edward Bradshaw, Glyn R. Brown, Jeff Broadbent, and Peter Dmitriyev. As an added bonus, there are several deleted songs that are included in the archive. You know that's right.

We will also release a second album soon. It will be a collection of remastered Wing Commander 3 music, based on the originals composed by George Oldziey, whose electrifying soundtrack provided the inspiration for the original music created by our composers for Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn.

Garriott DVD Drops May 15

Firmly ensconced in the geeky pantheon of computer legends since high school, Richard Garriott can afford to pursue his dreams - even the wildly improbable ones. For instance, following in his astronaut father's footsteps. NASA won't take you because of bad eyes? No problem! Pioneer your own private space industry and buy a $30 million seat on a Russian Soyuz. Richly funny and invigorating, Man on a Mission tags along with Richard on his years-long quest to be the second Garriott into space. And maybe come back.

Paradigm Deployed to Enigma Sector

The textures and thrusters will be changed again. Turrets are also not done yet on the model. Armament will be only in turrets (you can't give the capship guns in Saga). So I want to install: 2 Dual-Tachyon turrets, 4 Dual-Laser turrets and 2 IFF Launchers (1 up/down).

New WC Ship Viewer In Development

I had the idea of building an online 3D shipviewer for the wcnews shipdatabase, so I sat down today and created a very basic first version. Please not that the GUI is horrible (I just wanted to try some things out) and most likely isn't needed at all. Press and hold the left mouse button to orbit around the ship. Use the mousewheel to zoom in and out.

The intention of this is not to create another standalone shipviewer, but rather to create a web application that can be easily included whereever you like. Want the viewer in the wcnews shipdatabase? Inlude it. Want to post on the forums and to make your post more clear include some shots of a ship from a specific angle? Inlude the shipviewer in your post along with coordinates for the camera and you're done. The purpose is to have some sort of interactive screenshot that can easily be shared with others.

The only thing that's stopping me from finishing this up is this: Would anyone be willing to prepare the needed models for this (remember that the database can be filled step by step)? There's some in the wcnews.com download section, but not every ship is available. Also, would you guys back this up if I open up a kickstarter for this to get the needed funds for Flash support (remember that this is optional)? And most importantly: Would anyone use it at all?

Still Worthy of an Honorable Mention

One of the reasons why the Wing Commander and, to some extent, Freespace franchises were so great is that both of them allowed you to fail. They handled the concept differently -- Wing Commander had a "Losing Tree" of missions that was separate and distinct from the main game, while Freespace handed you difficult mission objectives that you could fail without losing the game. Both approaches created uncertainty and left the player wondering if better performance in-mission would change elements of future missions.

GameSpy also ran a preview of the upcoming space sim Miner Wars. They say the game has a distinctly Privateer feel to it. A demo is available to try for yourself!

Rosa and I had a chance to talk for a bit at this past GDC, but it wasn't until a few days ago that I had some time to play the Miner Wars 2081 demo (you can download it here) to see how this space sim is coming along. In short, it feels like Descent meets Wing Commander: Privateer, which if implemented right, could be awesome.

Warren Spector Revisits Origin Memories

GC: Well, I think we're all glad you made that choice. Now, I'm afraid I'm relying on Wikipedia for this question but it seems like your first game, or at least first retail game, was one of the Wing Commanders, is that right?

WS: Ah, no. [laughs] I actually did some uncredited testing on the very first three gold box games from SSI, Pools Of Radiance and the others. The first thing I actually did in the electronic games world is I went to work for Origin and I worked on quests and adventures on Ultima VI, I did all the story flow-charting and dialogue writing for a game called Space Rogue. And then I did some work on a game called Knights Of Legend and then after that was Wing Commander. I worked on Wing Commander and a game called Bad Blood about the same time.

A Trip to the WC Universe is Right

Far from slicing through the tension as her antics often do, my pet cat nearly got the both of us killed yowling into my small craft's mouthpiece. It took many assurances before my captors accepted that I did not belong to the apparently feline 'Kilrathi' race, though the benignity of my intentions remained in doubt.

Everything's Ship Shape!

Since August 2007 and the launching of WCPedia, Wingnuts have added 2,866 content articles, uploaded 4,196 files, made 30,458 edits, and viewed the pages of the project just under 3.5 million times. Quite a feat for the community! The project continues to steadily grow thanks to the efforts of the contributors.

And the WCPedia team is always looking for more contributors! You don't need to be a WC expert to help out. Every little bit helps toward the creation of the ultimate Wing Commander resource. Be sure to check out the WCPedia thread in the Chat Zone or drop by #wingnut on the CIC's IRC server if you are looking for ways to help out.

HUDdle Up and Check Out New Cockpit Displays

Aginor is working on a new Wing Commander mod, and this game will be played from the Kilrathi perspective. Although there won't be full dashboard cockpit graphics, each ship will have a unique heads up display. Most games use the same targeting crosshairs and reticle for all ships, but here are some examples of how Wing Commander 4 differentiated its craft.

And here are some of Aginor's new designs inspired by this diversity. They are more angular overall, and check out that asymmetrical one! It will belong to the Sorthak. You can find more concept art and help provide input for further designs at the CIC Forums.

Don't Miss an Infoburst!

Glance at Mod's Gwynedd Mission

Here I used the Confederation Class from Klavs and the converted Broadsword from Standoff. The Confederation is 990m long, the Broadsword 36m l, 32 w, 14h. Close fit.. but it can launch :)