New Bearcat Hits The Drawing Board

Hi everyone! Haven't posted anything in a very long time, but I figured I'd share something I've been working on. With all the new stuff going on for Star Citizen and the 3D model prints through Shapeways, I started thinking about how one of my favorite fighters would work. So I give y'all the Bearcat. This is my first model, and I'm extremely new at this and still learning. Here're some of the things I changed/imagined how it would look when finished.

First, the engine thrusters. Instead of the Bearcat's six engine ports, I thought that two large thrust vectoring nozzles would be more fitting. Next, I moved the wingtip mounted tachyon guns to a more central position. I think with internal missile bays, the missiles would launch one by one out where the guns were. I also made small housing area for the guns in case anyone would want to swap the guns out (I honestly don't think I have the scale of the tachyon guns right, but that can be fixed). I haven't added the maneuvering thrusters yet. Still learning on how I could do that, but I think they'd work best right where the wings meet the fuselage and also near the cockpit. Instead of intakes right by the cockpit, I decided to make those the retro rockets for reverse thrust and leave the intakes by the engines. Finally, the last thing I can think of right now (it's 2 am) is the cockpit. Once that's finished, it's going to be a strut-less or near strut-less canopy to give the pilot an uninterrupted field of view.

Like I said, this is a work in progress, but I would appreciate any feedback on how to make this better or any ideas on features to add to the model. Also, if anyone can point me to tutorials on texturing, I have an idea on a paint scheme I want to use on this. I'm going to work on this when I can so progress might be slow, but hopefully the final product can be something everyone can use and enjoy.

Crossbow Locked & Loaded On Concordia's Deck

So here's what it looks like in the Build, and a sneak peek at Damon's Blair head, too!

The Empire Infiltrates Wing Commander Academy

Some more updates on this front :)

I managed to modify my scripts to output either 37 or 62 sprite ships. The OpenGL 3d to 2d converter outputs a image matrix with the full 62 sprites, but the second stage converter can now take a subset of these sprites and output a regular 37-sprite ship file for WCA, or a 62-sprite ship for SO2. This is good, it means that I'll be able to quickly generate a new ship file for testing on WCA, while at the same time have the necessary data to start running some tests on SO2, in order to enable asymmetric ship support for ships other than Ayer's Rock (I'll probably try to isolate the necessary changes into a COM file that will launch the main SO2 EXE... we'll see).

With this in mind, I started converting another ship: the WC4 Dralthi :D

Besides being an iconic WC ship, it has asymmetric aspects (pilot and weapons pod), which makes it a great test subject. Also, it's asymmetry is subtle enough at low resolutions that it shouldn't spoil the fun of playing with it in WCA, without asymmetry support.

As a bonus: since I had to rework my scripts to support this new approach... I decided it was time to try something else: increased resolution sprites. While my OpenGL generator used to generate 160x120 "tiles", I decided to add support for changing the size of these. For the Dralthi, these were increased to 320x240, which should make the ship hold up better when near the camera. As expected, however, the increase in resolution resulted in a larger ship in-game, which means the sprite scale factor will have to be tweaked. I haven't done this yet, which means the Dralthi in the screenshots below looks larger than it should. Other than that, the game seems to handle the new file just fine, even though it's around ~400kb (but with some RLE optimizations, the size should come down a bit).

Anyway, here are a few screenshots of the work-in-progress Dralthi. Enjoy :) (of course, comments / suggestions are always welcome)

Cybot Ships Spice Up Confed Life

• Some stuff to make bases and hangars look more live in and used.
• Privateers ship from a burning Galaxy. The Anaan reminds me of the Wasp from Prophecy. If any one wants to make a mod, maybe if you use the jump gate you get sent to Privateer 2 or somewhere. :)

Broadsword Fits In With Fleet Colors

Red Baron: Scooby's model doesn't really look very Broadsword-y when viewed from an angle because it's all sharp edges, but if you look at the silhouettes you'll see it's spot on.

ScoobyDoo: The Broadsword was bits and pieces from Lar's Broadsword and my Hwacha (which was originally a Broadsword) all mashed together.

RSI Surpasses $25 Million!

At $25 million, you allow us to build a stronger infrastructure for the Star Citizen alpha test:

Enhanced Alpha – We will use additional funding to build a wider alpha test than we had originally intended for the first phase of Star Citizen’s launch. The initial plan was to first launch servers in North America and then expand to areas such as Europe and Australia to decrease latency in these areas, perfecting the game as we improve the experience around the world. This funding will allow us to invest in a wider infrastructure for our early testing, spinning up remote servers earlier. Hitting this goal will also allow us to increase the number of remaining alpha slots. Extra alpha slots not only means more Star Citizens will travel the ‘verse at launch, but that we will receive more feedback and more stress testing. This in turn will allow us to better balance and enhance the Star Citizen experience!

Scimitar Reimagined

Just learning 3D modelling. Thought it would be fun creating a Wing Commander ship. I'm a fan of the 3D artist here at WCNews.

I used to be a fan of the scimitar. Not because it handled well, but because the take of and landing sequence reminded me of the Viper. I wanted to create a sleek version of a Scimitar. Since the old Wing Commander models all had wings and intakes, I wanted to create a version which would perform well as an atmospheric fighter.

The engine configuration is inspired by both the Dassault Rafale and the Viper of Battle Star Galactica The shape of the fuselage is partly inspired by the SR71. The wings are more or less parallel to function like a triplane. The vertical stabilizers are positioned at an angle to reduce the radar cross section. Instead of mass drivers it features two M61 Vulcan mounted under the plane.

Criticism is welcome.

Kilrathi RPG Campaign Accepting Names for Frontier Outposts

This week I continued with my efforts to get the Epsilon Sector campaign setting ready for Elegy (the campaign setting material will be acting as the "front half" of the campaign this time around, with the Elegy story and missions making up the "back half"). At the moment, that means manufacturing system maps. I didn't have an outstanding VASSAL mod competing for my time this week, so I was able to pick up work there in earnest, completing maps at a rate of four per day.

I've been working on calculating distances between various nav points and I can report that effort as current for all systems. I'm still a little up in the air over what information will be included with each system, but I have settled on system affiliation, history, bases/cities and facilities data, population and demographics data, commodities data and random encounter probabilities at the various nav points. For planets, I intend to put in their planetary characteristics. If I add any other data, it might be prominent citizenry and/or potential missions within a system. The whole idea behind adding all this information is, of course, for players to not necessarily have to play the Elegy campaign if they don't want to, but still be able to use the information to play a different campaign set in Epsilon during the same time period (Epsilon during the 2690 Nephilim onslaught might be an interesting BSG-esque tale...).

I've just gotten done with some pretty heavy labor involving planet building. I'm reasonably satisfied with the results in most cases, though there are some things that will need to be tweaked (apparently Circe V has a population of 100 and Pasqual X's atmosphere isn't breathable). I can now definitively say that there will be 86 bases total in Elegy, with some of them located on the same planet (for example, Firekka alone will contain four - these will be major cities on the planet's surface, of course).

So I've got my next problem: finding names for everything. I've got a total of 24 outposts/planets that need names, and on top of that I have 59 specific communities that need names. I figured this one is one I could toss to the community - have you ever wanted to name a place in the Wing Commander universe? Well, here's a chance. I need all kinds of names - Terran, Kilrathi, Firekkan, any others that you might want to throw out there, I can use it. I'll mention those who help out in the game's credits. If anyone's interested, just post to this thread.

Hustle & Bustle on the Concordia's Flight Deck

So now all the WC2 fighters are in there! The only one giving me a headache is the Crossbow - the thing is 24M long, and that's just not enough room to fit a turret on the back end. I think I might end up removing the lowermost rear engine to make space for it. :\ I just don't know. I could probably make the Crossbow tail turret smaller (maybe 80% the size) and still fit a dude in there. Anyhow, take a look and let me know what you think!

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Got an update on the Crossbow! I've almost finished with primary texturing, and I'm moving onto the Cockpit, Turret, and Landing Gear. This is very close to the original game model - mostly modified in the areas of the cockpit, forward guns, and a little around the engines. The cockpit had to be modified to match the other in-game shots, while the guns needed to be added. I changed the engines, because...I liked how they looked. I hope you can forgive me. :)

Sharp New Dralthi Concept Brought Into Third Dimension

Thought you guys would like this. My re-imagined Dralthi in 3D (courtesy of Zohrath)

New 3D Printing Options Offer Model Breakthrough

I'm afraid Shapeways continues to reject models that have already been successfully produced.

They are now telling me the Salthi, Dralthi, Dralthi Mk IV, Ferret, Sabre (All Versions) and Arrows (All Versions) are unprintable. At this rate, I would be surprised if they would be able to produce any of them. I will be removing the models from Shapeways at the end of next week. If anybody is interested I have a Hellcat, 2 Excaliburs, an Armada Arrow and a Tarawa Ferret for sale.

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Well, initial try for the WC4 Hellcat. You can pick material, scale to the size you want, view and rotate the model, do the solidity check (an 8" model should be printable, you'll have to play with it) see if it's printable, and order! Bing bang boom. Default scale is the same as it was on Shapeways. And if they reject it, try it in a different material or a larger size.

Text Based RPG Explores Enigma Campaign & Firekkan Reconstruction

Standard Terran Date: 2659.033

Three years have passed since the venerable TCS Tiger's Claw was destroyed. Accused of cowardice after the attack, a disgraced and demoted Christopher Blair is reassigned to the backwater Gwynedd star system. The Firekkan people, the first non-human members of the Terran Confederation, have only just begun to rebuild after a brutal Kilrathi attack was averted on the brink of annihilation. Ghorah Khar, a strategically important Kilrathi world, is openly rebelling against the Empire. The Confederation Navy has redeployed to assist the rebels and push back the Empire: the Enigma Sector Campaign.

Listen up, recruit. You're headed to Caernarvon Station for flight training. We will need more qualified pilots, gunners, engineers and operations officers to push the Kilrathi back. As you gain experience in the cockpit you will gain access to the best weapons and equipment the Confederation has to offer, including Lasers, Missiles, Cannons, Particle Beam Emitters, Ship-to-ship Hacking tools, Capacitor Shunts, plus many more.

** We are currently open for final BETA TESTING of our completely new, fully-featured text-based RPG designed to remove the usual duldrum of MUSH space simulation and feature easy-to-use, exciting, fast-paced space adventure. Experienced writers and storytellers interested in creating fully immersive space adventure missions are also being sought.

Created by the people who brought you Wing Commander: Red Horizons MUSH, this is NOT a prequel/sequel but an entirely new adaptation of the classic Wing Commander video game series. Both single and multiplayer adventure and role playing are supported.

Point your favorite MUD/MUSH client to grapenut.org:4201 (Recommended) or you may use our web client at http://grapenut.org (Not all features supported) to try us out.

HBO Kicks Off Another Wing Commander Broadcast Run

In the year 2564, a rookie fighter pilot and his pals hold the fate of the human race in their hands during an outer-space war between humans and a nasty race of aliens. Based on a popular video game. Starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard, Tcheky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow and David Suchet. Directed by Chris Roberts; screen story and screenplay by Kevin Droney. (PG13) (AL, V)

Best Place to Park a Tarsus?

WC vs History: Ships of the Victory Battle Group - Part II

TCS Coventry was a Southampton-Class Destroyer, one of the two in Destroyer Squadron 67. The other being TCS Sheffield which we will look at next week. TCS Coventry takes her name from the city of Coventry in the West Midlands of England.

The Coventry was present at the destruction of Locanda, the successful incursion at Ariel, and was an escort to the TCS Behemoth during that ship's maiden voyage. The Coventry attempted to defend the Behemoth when it was attacked in the Loki System, but ultimately the Behemoth was destroyed and the Coventry itself was struck by a Kilrathi mine, although Bondarevsky recalled it as a missile strike in 2670. The Coventry survived the attack, but the bridge was breached, killing everyone except the squadron commander, Jason Bondarevsky, who lost his right arm due to the attack.

Six ships of the Royal Navy have been named Coventry. The first was from the early days of the Royal Navy. It was a 28-gun Spanish ship that was captured in 1658 and served England until it was captured from them by the French. The second HMS Coventry was a 48-gun fourth-rate ship-of-the-line launched in 1695. It was captured by the French nine years later, but soon recaptured and later broken up. The third Coventry was a 28-gun frigate launched in 1757. However, like the two previous ships to bear the name, she was captured by the French. This time in 1783.

It was more than 150 years till the next British ship bore the name Coventry. Laid down during the First World War, the fourth Coventry was a C-class light cruiser. She didn't see any action during the war, but served as part of the Baltic squadron. It was during the Second World War that Coventry saw more than her share of action. She was first damaged during an air attack on 1 January 1940. Later, she was assigned to the Mediterranean where she suffered a torpedo hit from an Italian submarine. The ship was lost on 14 September 1942 while supporting operations around Tobruk. She sustained bomb hits from Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers and burned profusely. She was scuttled by HMS Zulu when she was deemed beyond saving.

The fifth ship to bear the name is perhaps the most well-known of all ships to bear it. Laid down in 1973, and launched in 1974, the fifth ship was a Sheffield-Class destroyer. After a few quiet years of service, Coventry was deployed to the South Atlantic to participate in the Falklands War. There she contributed greatly to the British effort in providing anti-aircraft support for the British fleet. However, on 25 May 1982, while acting as a decoy force, Coventry was attacked by Argentine Skyhawks. After defeating the first attack, a second set of aircraft attacked 90 seconds later and planted three bombs on the ship. Her computer room destroyed and the Operations Room smashed, incapacitating most of the senior officers, the other bomb hit the engine room and other important areas. Bulkheads were breached and seawater poured in, giving the ship an immediate list. The third bomb hit, but failed to detonate. The ship capsized and sank within 20 minutes. Waiting to be rescued, the crew sang "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian.

The last ship in the Royal Navy to bear the name Coventry was a frigate launched in 1986. She was named in honor of the previous ship but only served the Royal Navy for a short while. She was purchased by the Romanian Navy in 2003 and handed over in 2004.

Wing 4 Actors Test Their Might

He has nothing but good things to say about director Kevin Tancharoen ("He's got a great eye, he's really funny, he's a great director"), but more than that, the actor gets warm and fuzzy talking about the team working on the film: its stunt coordinator Garrett Warren is one of his best friends and he counts producer Lance Sloane and actor Mark Dacascos as family friends (he and Dacascos has roles in the Sierra PC space shooter "Wing Commander IV" together). He jokes that his son was a frequent presence on set, playing the original "Mortal Kombat" theme song, giving the whole project a real tight-knit vibe.

Sabres Fill The Concordia's Hangar

Update to the Sabre! Mostly textured, now - needs the landing gear and cockpit for both the pilot and the gunner. It's in the build now too, so you can walk around and take a look. No collision yet!

Yu're not gonna get to sit in it or fly it. Think of this whole exercise as a museum. You can walk around and look, but no getting into the spruce goose and flying it off. :p So the bit part is of the model are done - now to do the landing gear internals and the turret/cockpit stuff!

Hellcat Color's Perfect Now

Hi everyone!

Although the hull painting was pretty much completed in my previous update, I still wasn't completely satisfied with the colour (I'm finicky that way...). So I decided to take things to the next level. I took some RGB values from my reference material, and made myself a proper colour chart. Here it is:

Next came the challenge of trying to mix paint from RGB values. After extensive searching, I came across a few sites that guided me in the right direction. If anyone is ever in a similar situation, I found this one to be particularly useful: http://www.goldenpaints.com/products/mixer/

After a lot of trial and error, I finally settled on a mix that seemed to match the reference pictures and in-game screenshots quite well. Here is the end result, although to be honest, I don't think you will notice much of a difference compared to the previous pictures. Still, I'm happier with the colour now.

With the hull now finally painted, it was time to move on to some finer details.

First up, I added engine intake detail similar to that found on the larger Confed ships. Once again, the reference material proved to be priceless. I got a really nice shot of the intake pattern from one of the new Wing Commander IV HD FMV clips, so special thanks to the CIC for providing those! Took some tricky painting with a fine brush, but the result looks even better than I expected, and I think it adds a nice little touch of realism.

Then it was time to start work on the engine intake vents. I managed to find some insanely thin pieces of balsa in my scrap box, cut the strips to the correct length, and painted them. Add a bit of wood glue and some tweezer work, and voila!

I'm really excited about how the ship is taking shape. More updates soon.

Test Fly a Hellcat V in Academy Now!

That's actually a very interesting idea. :) If polygon-based 3D did not take off the way it did, I wonder if other approaches would have been considered. For example, imagine WC1 with terrain support. A hybrid sprite / voxel engine (essentially expanding the WC1 engine with a voxel component) could have been very interesting, with sprites being used for fighters / capships as usual and voxels being used for terrain (not unlike Commanche Maximum Overkill). I'm guessing of course, but I think it could have worked very well!

Anyway, research on the engine data is continuing. I think I managed to locate the exhaust coordinates in there, but there's still a lot of unknowns that I need to solve before I am able to generate a new chunk. I suspect it will still take me a few days to figure things out.

In the meantime, however, since the Hellcat already has stats, I thought it would be fun to upload what I have so far, so you could take the ship for a ride and see how it feels in WCA. Just keep in mind that the engine exhaust placement is not final, and still has to be adjusted. As for the VDU guns, I ended up changing the gun icons to the WC2 mass driver icon, for both the MD and Neutron guns. The Neutron gun icon of the Crossbow was just too wide. Plus, this helped "unclutter" the cockpit area a bit. I think the end result is good!

Sabres Dance In The Dark

With 'Sabredance', the artist has simultaneously failed to capture the emotion of the questionable 'victory' at Vukar Tag, and, most dourly, spurned a multitude of hackneyed 8-bit impersonators, each more terrible than the last. The emergance of 'veteran art' is a regrettable corollary to disarmament, and a continued reminder of the barbarism of our recent past. The 'talent' of this artist is best left in the cockpit, or better yet, consigned to the trash heap of history.

-Z. Indebyev, Warsaw Quad-Solar Art Critique, 2668.25 (Last issue)

Roberts Space Industries Event Video Online

GOG Discounts EA Games This Weekend

This weekend we're all about classics! There's 33 exciting games that you can get with a 60% off discount in our Exciting EA Exclusives weekend promo. With a vast selection of retro-gems priced at only $2.39 each, and two relatively newer titles (which are vastly considered classics as well) for only $3.99 and $5.99, it's safe to say, that you can not often find better value for your money in the gaming world. That's not all, however! Every purchase you'll make grants you a free copy of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition! If you already own it on GOG.com, we will email you a gift-able code, so you can pass it on to someone who hadn't had the chance to meet Geralt of Rivia yet.

WC vs History: Ships of the Victory Battle Group

The addition of escort ships to the player's carrier was a nice touch that added to the immersion of gameplay. You felt like you were part of a bigger fleet that was taking on the Kilrathi at every turn. Often, the three ships escorting the TCS Victory just cruised alongside her. Their turrets ready to engage any target that might threaten the carrier. The three escorts were part of Destroyer Squadron 67, commanded by Jason Bondarevsky who had his flag on TCS Conventry. The largest of the escorts was the Tallahassee-Class Cruiser TCS Ajax. It's the focus of today's update.

TCS Ajax takes her name from the Greek hero of the Trojan War. Both the United States Navy and Royal Navy have named ships Ajax in the past. Currently, no ships in either fleet bear the name but a new British submarine will carry the name in the future.

For most of Wing Commander III, the TCS Ajax gently glides beside the Victory. Her guns only fire in anger in a few missions. When they do, they unleash a punishing amount of damage. In Hyperion 2, Colonel Blair is ordered to escort the capships of DesRon 67 as they destroy an incoming Kilrathi Fleet. Few fireworks displays match what happens at Nav 3 when the Ajax battles it out against a Frathli II-Class cruiser. The massive turrets that spot the hull of the cruiser are listed as 12 dual laser turrets, although in game not all the rounds fired from the turrets are red. There are also slower moving yellow bolts that do considerably more damage than a standard turret laser and faster moving white bolts.

Returning to the real world, eight ships in the Royal Navy, and four in the US Navy, have been named Ajax. The ships in the Royal Navy have, for the most part, been heavy gun ships. The first four in the Royal registry were 70+ gun ships-of-the-line. The first Ajax saw extensive service in the American Revolution before being sold after the war. The second ship to bear the name fought at the famous Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

The fifth ship was the first to bear the name as an ironclad battleship in 1880. The next ship to bear the name was the fourth ship in the King George V class of battleships. Launched in March 1912, she only saw action during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. She received no hits and it is unclear whether any of her shells found targets because of the large number of ships involved.

The fifth ship in the Royal Navy to bear the name Ajax is, perhaps, the most well-known. Commissioned in 1935, this Ajax was a Leander class light cruiser. While serving as the flagship for Force G (comprised of Ajax, Exeter, and Achilles, an all-cruiser force) in the South Atlantic, the ships encountered and engaged the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in the Battle of the River Plate. During the engagement, Ajax was hit seven times, disabling two turrets, damaging the upperworks of the ship and causing 12 casualties, including 7 killed. The British were able to convince the Germans that a much larger force was awaiting them if they steamed from Montevideo and the Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled instead. Later in the war, the Ajax took part in the Battles of Crete and Malta. After sustaining a 1,000 lb bomb hit on New Year's Day 1943, the ship went to Norfolk Navy Yard for an extensive refit. When she rejoined the Fleet, Ajax, as part of Force K, bombarded Gold Beach on D-Day and in the process destroyed some six-inch gun emplacements that could have hindered the landings.

The most recent Royal Navy ship to have the honor of being named Ajax belonged to a Leander class frigate launched in 1962. The ship did not see action during any of the British conflicts of the period before being scrapped in 1988. Currently, the Royal Navy plans to use the name Ajax in the seventh submarine of the Astute class. It is planned to be in service by 2024.

US Navy ships to bear the name have not been combat vessels, save for the first ship which was an armored monitor commissioned after the Civil War and saw service in the Spanish-American War. Three other ships have used the name: a collier later converted to a seaplane tender in 1901, a research vessel purchased in 1917, and the most recent a Vulcan class repair ship launched in 1941 and decommissioned in 1989. There are currently no planned US ships to be given the name.

Cloud Imperium Games Celebrates Big Birthday

Greetings Citizens,

We’re less than a week away from the first anniversary of Star Citizen’s announcement! October 10th will mark the one year anniversary of Chris Roberts’ announcing Star Citizen at GDC Online. And we’re celebrating with a special event! Star Citizen developers from offices around the world are gathering in Austin, Texas, where the game was first announced, to celebrate the progress we’ve made.

In honor of this anniversary, Cloud Imperium is hosting a special event in downtown Austin. And… since Star Citizen wouldn’t exist without our backers, we’re opening the show to you! Chris Roberts and the rest of the Star Citizen team will be giving a special keynote presentation to show everyone the work we’ve been doing this past year… and talk about what’s coming next! You can tune in live starting at 6:30 PM CST (-5 GMT) on Thursday, October 10th. One note for our fans worldwide who may not be able to view the event: any limited-time offers will run through the following weekend (ending Monday, October 14th). We will also be announcing the winners of the Star Citizen photo contest. If you’d like to enter, this is your last chance; the deadline is tonight at midnight

Next week also marks the first time the entire Star Citizen team will be in one place at one time, and we’ll be taking full advantage of the opportunity! The MobiGlas concepts above are a small taste of what we’ll be fleshing out during a series of major planning sessions. If you’re familiar with the Star Citizen fiction we’ve already published, you probably remember a character using their MobiGlas, a portable computer interface. Now a challenge for our designers is coming up with how the player will use the MobiGlas; it’s like building an entirely new computer system! These storyboards, created by the team at Behaviour, show our current progress. Next week, the team will be talking about everything from how you’ll use your MobiGlass to how you’ll command capital ships!

We’re looking forward to the summit and to the livestream presentation. We can’t wait to share some more of the work we’ve done in the past year with the community… along with a surprise or two!

Sabre Adds Extra Muscle To Concordia Hangar

The WC2 F-57 Sabre! Yeeehaaaw! I used the original .3DS files to make this new version. It's very, very close to the original, with just some streamlining around the guns, wing roots, and engines. These are actually old shots - I've moved on to modeling the cockpit and landing gear. Next up comes unwrapping and texturing, which should go quick since I've got it down to a science. I also started re-modeling the Crossbow, and that's got to be the most interesting collection of shapes I've ever seen. I'm trying to turn it into something cohesive without straying far from the original mesh. Definitely a challenge!

I'm just making what's been rattling around in my head since my dad came home with WC2 in 1992. All I hope is that the guys who originally made this stuff get a big goofy grin on their faces when they see my version.

I am not planning on ever letting you fly these things. There will be things moving around the hangar, but this whole exercise is an example of observation, not action. I plan on adding little touches of true fandom all over the place. Little things for people to discover. :D

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

The Heart of the Tiger Comes Out Ahead

I created a classic Wing Commander 2, "Blue Hair" Christopher Blair in 3D. Thought you guys might like it.

Not finished, his eyes are a little wonky. Maybe one day. I'll make the character available as a 3D download for the community.

Hellcat Masterfully Modded into WCA

Although it's been a while since I focused on the earlier WC games, the earlier sprite-based WC games are still among my favorites. Back when I was 16, I started my WC-editing days digging through the WC1 and WC2 files, hacking weapon stats and mission files in order to create new battles and stories in the WC universe, and for years I've been promising myself that I would do a small mod for WC1. The idea ended up changing a bit during the years, and although it remains on my To-Do list of WC-related tasks, it's been pushed down for years in favour of other tweaks for the more recent games.

Recently however, the WCA GOG release, coupled with my research digging through the SWC data a while back back, ended up motivating me to revisit something that I always wanted to do, and that in a way would play a part in my small WC1-mod that never was: I decided to try my luck at building a ship importer. Since the formats are so similar (and the RLE encoding is the same for both games), I can kill two birds with one stone and support both WC1 and WC2/WCA, with only a change of palette and a small change on the file packaging logic.

I updated my site with some info and screenshots about this. For the curious, I can tell you that the import process was two-fold: first (since I'm not an artist, basically :p) I had to get myself a set of images that I could import into WCA. Since the Realspace geometry format is pretty well known, I coded a small script to generate a set of 37 images in WC2 palette that i could import. The result was pretty neat! Then it was a matter of coding the necessary scripts to code those 37 images as a valid ship file. I basically have another script for that, which reads an image like the one below, reading 37 160x120 "tiles", and codes a WC2 ship!

As you can see from the screenshots, the ship is playable in WCA right now! It only needs some decent stats and some tweaking of the engine exhaust flames.

Hopefully this will slowly grow into a WC2 mod, it would certainly like to see it happen :)

Escort Carrier Gets Crisp Lines & A Full Hangar

The first [Landing Craft] came in BACKWARDS, punching down hard skidding haphazardly towards the safety barrier and my lines of precious spacecraft. It was still moving as the ramp came down and HE came out. Merritt locked eyes with me and was tucked underneath my chin in a heartbeat, grabbing my vest and pulling me down so he could shout into my ear.

"MAKE ROOM, SON! I GOT NINE MORE COMIN' IN RIGHT BEHIND ME!"

"MOVE!"

Holy hell. I have never moved so fast in my life to get things respotted. I don't know how we did it so fast, but we got all the LC's aboard with about five centimeters to spare. By the time we were done, The Marines were already setting up camp underneath the wings of the fighters. The hangar deck smelled like a barbecue.

At some point, someone had called 'Skee down to the launch bay. Not knowing what to do, we all stood by and waited for the fireworks.

-Lyford Beverage, 'Airedale' aboard TCS Tarawa.

Wing Commander on HBO Go and TV

In the year 2564, a rookie fighter pilot and his pals hold the fate of the human race in their hands during an outer-space war between humans and a nasty race of aliens. Based on a popular video game. Starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard, Tcheky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow and David Suchet. Directed by Chris Roberts; screen story and screenplay by Kevin Droney. (PG13) (AL, V)

• Friday, October 11th at 3:30 A.M. pacific time - HBO Zone East
• Fri. Oct. 11, 6:30 A.M. HBO Zone West
• Tue. Oct. 22, 4:30AM HBO East
• Tue. Oct. 22, 4:30AM HBO Latino East
• Tue. Oct. 22, 7:30AM HBO West
• Tue. Oct. 22, 7:30AM HBO Latino West
• Thu. Oct. 24, 3:40 A.M. HBO Zone West
• Thu. Oct. 24, 6:40 A.M. HBO Zone West
• Sun. Nov. 3, 7PM HBO Family East
• Sun. Nov. 3, 10PM HBO Family West
• Wed. Nov. 6, 11:20 PM HBO Family East
• Thu. Nov. 7, 2:20AM HBO Family West
• Wed. Nov. 13, 3:00AM HBO2 East
• Wed. Nov. 13, 6:00AM HBO2 West
• Sat. Nov. 16, 3:10AM HBO2 East
• Sat. Nov. 16, 6:10AM HBO2 West

Freddie Prinze Eyes Star Wars Role

Star Wars: Rebels is the CGI-animated series being made by Lucasfilm Animation that will air on Disney XD.

THR/HeatVision has learned that David Oyelowo, Freddie Prinze Jr., Vanessa Marshall, Taylor Gray and Steven Jay Blum are in the process of being cast as the voice leads for the series, which will make its debut in fall 2014.

It's A Real Hot Button Issue

WASD seems to be out of parts to deliver keyboards at this point... I was able to pick up a model from another vendor that the WASD keycaps will work with for ~$100 so I'll be getting just the keycaps from WASD for ~$40.

Once I get my set I'll happily share the .svg file with anyone else who wants one... But I'm going to be selfish and be first!

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The keycaps are here! I ordered a keyboard from another company through a group buy on Massdrop - it came with 2 sets of factory keycaps that I should be able to resell to make some of the $$$ back and get the total cost down a bit.

Shrike Strikes Hard with the Right Pilot

ScoobyDoo is back with another underappreciated Wing Commander ship. He's modeled the Shrike bomber in his characteristic heavy metal style. By some accounts, the TB-81 was a fairly average strike craft, but it did have a few surprises up its sleeve. The variant flown in Prophecy typically carried a respectable mix of 8 torpedoes and numerous rocket pods, but the torps could be swapped out for an even larger load of HARM missiles. Talented pilots could do some serious damage with the charging mass driver, and Secret Op's "Black Strike" was quite a powerhouse with its twin dust cannons.

A few personal liberties: it's definitely a two-seater now (most bombers should be anyways), one of the mass drivers was dropped.

Origin designer Sean Murphy's original renders are also pictured below. He's revealed previously that the forward fuselage was planned to be a detachable fighter pod at one point in development, and the underslung tube was originally intended for electronic warfare!

WC Documentation Guru Interviewed at RSI

What projects have you worked on? Have you worked with Chris Roberts before?

Projects … I arrived a Origin a few months after Ultima VI and Wing Commander (I) shipped. As editor, my name was on every product that shipped from that point until I left, in 1997. That includes WC II – V (Prophecy), Ultima VII – IX (some of this after I left Origin, as a contractor), all of the Speech Packs, Secret Missions and other add-ons, all the various console titles, Strike Commander, WC Armada, and so forth.

… yes, I’ve worked with Chris before. :)

New Privateer 2 Patch Adds Deinterlace Feature & Numerous Fixes

You can download the patch here (500 k zip). Simply unzip it into your Privateer 2 installation directory. The patch will preserve your original GOG install though. To play the patched version you will then run darkfix.exe instead of dark.exe. You will also have to set Win95 compatibility mode on darkfix.exe in order to get inflight music.

This patch can be used on either the GOG version of the game or the original DOS and Windows versions. If, however, you are running either regular DOS Privateer 2 or the Deluxe Windows version and not the GOG version, we strongly recommend copying all 3 CDs to the hard drive, as this is what darkfix.exe is expecting, and the patch wasn't tested for running the game from the CDs.

Current features include:

• Random crashes which froze the game were solved.
• Mouse issues were fixed: the mouse tended to become unresponsive in some situations.
• More stable digital sound (fixes some sound crackling issues that occured often)
• Deinterlace patch: no horizontal black lines, which is a bit more friendly towards modern displays
• Speed stabilization: the game plays at acceptable speeds, without slowdowns when near a planet or ship. The gameflow parts (rooms, PAD, and so on) are also slowed down by the current patch.
• No-cd patch. (Requires copying all CDs to your Dark directory)

We're also looking at tweaking the patch further to make the game run more smoothly and to lower CPU usage, so please don't forget to leave feedback so we can quash any bugs. In the future we may even make an installer to automate the patching process and to create the appropriate shortcuts.