Adm_Maverick stopped in to share these pictures that document the build of his papercraft Vampire fighter. This is one of the many ships originally developed by Péricles for Paper Commander. All of them are amazing creations! The hard work designing each vessel is already done, so all Wingnuts need to do now is build them! Maverick's experiences with the F-109 have also inspired him to design a new ship: the Excalibur. You can follow his adventures figuring out the best way to put it together at the CIC Forums.
I did a paper-craft version of the F-109 Vampire recently, and that really rekindled an old interest I've had to have a model of the F-103 Excalibur. And if you want to check out more images of the construction process of it, check out the album.
Klavs' latest wallpaper image is an exciting strike on a Fralthi. While a pair of heavily armed Raptors swoop in on an attack run, a single Hornet dances across the cruiser's hull with laser beams blazing. I also really like all the blue highlights and background dust as well as the sense of motion here. Colonel Halcyon sure liked to send a pair of starfighters out to assault a major capship, but it's a much more terrifying proposition when everything is scaled properly!
B: "Three guesses as to who THAT is..."
T: (sigh) At least he's keepin' 'em busy. Go for target lock!"
Denis Loubet's new sketch of Mariko Tanaka is now complete! It's an ink drawing that emulates the style of the printed art that accompanied the original game. It's very neat to see the one of the original artists take on the character after nearly twenty-five years. As a lucky Patreon follower, frequent CIC visitor Mekt-Hakkikt won the hard copy original. Congrats!
I really like the stark simplicity of this one. Decided to go with no shine on the hair, and adding her name as an element seems to give it a touch of class.
The Skinny recently conducted an interview with Matthew Lillard. The focus was his directorial work at the Edinburg Festival Fringe, but topics were all over the place. When questioned which movies he might take with him to survive an apocalypse, this is what he had to say.
MATT: I would convince everyone living in post-apocalyptic Matt-world that every one of my movies was considered a classic, and I would forbid the right to anyone producing any art that wasn't Summer Catch, Scream or Scooby-Doo.
FRED: I notice you didn't mention Wing Commander.
MATTHEW: Some things sadly don't survive the apocalypse. Some things have to die.
At least it'd be considered a classic! You can find the entire interview here.
Unboxingvideos are everywhere these days, and it's a shame that this trend arrived after the decline of physical video game packages. Most games are downloaded digitally now, and there just aren't all that many awesome collector's editions anymore. Sometimes Youtubers just need to look back into the past for cool games to open up. 298enterprise recently went back and reviewed the contents of the original Wing Commander. He naturally finds Claw Marks and the awesome blueprints, and he even spends quite a bit of time on the cardboard exterior. The clip isn't the slickest technical production and sometimes things move a bit quickly right in front of the camera, but it's great to see someone doing this with the WC series.
L.I.F. has teased some of the big guns coming to the Homeworld mod. Both the Concordia class dreadnought and Hakaga supercarriers have been implemented in the engine and are raring to decimate opposing fleets. Now you can see how these two massive warships square off against each other. Meanwhile efforts are under way to implement version 3.2 of the project which should future proof it from changes that the developers are making under the hood. There were some issues with the initial test of 3.2 out there, so the current stable version has been rolled back to 3.15 for the time being. Follow the ongoing discussions at the CIC Forums for the latest status.
FLASH FLASH FLASH
Emergency transmission received from TCS Concordia. Last known location of the ship: Vespus System. No additional data was sent by the ship. Assume worst case scenario.
DefianceIndustries continues to bulk up the Border Worlds fleet, and this time he's upsized his efforts with a preliminary model of the Durango class heavy destroyer/light carrier. It's already looking super sharp and appears to be ready for texturing work. If hisfightermodels are any comparison, the final paint scheme should be a sight to behold! Then we'll get to see whether this ship is actually the BWS Intrepid, BWS Tango or a new member of the family. You can follow the latest status at the CIC Forums.
Klavs has produced a massive fleet of iconic Kilrathi warships, and that's left him with a variety of major subcomponents on the cutting room floor. He's cobbled together these parts to assemble a pretty compelling new kat design. The consensus seems to be that this could be some sort of destroyer or light cruiser. It has some major features in common with the heavy Rigakh class cruiser, except scaled down a bit, so this makes a lot of sense. Hit the comments link to let Klavs know what you think!
It occured to me that I have a lot of random Kilrathi bits and bobs, so... Kilrathi Kitbash! Call it the Mwrowr'ftttt'hssss class... destroyer maybe?
If you couldn't make it to the big party last weekend, now's your chance to relive the event virtually. Our Seventeenth Birthday logs are available online here. Hop down to 16:00 to see when the party officially got started. The big countdown to unveiling of our front page updates takes place at 17:00. You can also find previous parties dating back to our grand opening in 1998 in our #Wingnut archive here. Our current poll shows that many of you were around back in those days - it's pretty crazy to see the '90s version of yourself talking online!
English actor Clive Owen is going back into space. Reports say he's been cast in the lead role of Valerian in the live-action adaptation of a long-running French comic series. The actor joins director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, Léon) and co-stars Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne in the big budget sci-fi epic. Owen has previously starred in such blockbusters as Children of Men, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and The International, but he is perhaps best known for portraying Lev Arris in Privateer 2.
Valerian is a saga for every fan of intergalactic high adventure. The stories are gripping and of epic proportion, sweeping along in thrilling, hyper-space speed.
The intrepid Valerian and his beautiful, sharp-witted and sharp-tongued partner, Laureline, are two of the greatest agents for the vast Galaxity organization. Their missions have taken all corners of the distant past, the present, and the far future. They have seen incredible alien worlds and vistas, met amazing creatures and beings from other planets, and braved dangers to last a thousand lifetimes.
But now the Galaxity, and their home of Earth in the 28th century, are gone -- vanished as if they never existed! Alone, and totally dependent on their own resources, they struggle to carve out a new life and a new future against intergalactic dangers from the past, present, and future.
Dark Sentinel has returned with complete versions of his Nephilim Manta and Devil Ray fighters. Both have been fully textured, and there's a third bonus fighter: the reddish brown Manta bomber. Nephilim skins can be very hard to pull off, but these execute a colorful organic vibe without just being splotchy psychadelics. The bugs are certainly underrepresented in fan models, so these are nice to see. You can find his older Orca design and texture prototypes here.
EMERGENCY RESURFACE! ... no time to explain, just escape, retreat, regroup and run in fear!
These are 2k maps. Presumably can be shrunk down to 1k. Polycounts didn't change during this year.
Arraen has had a busy summer adding lots of Confedships to his strategy mod. Now it's time to start bulking up the Kilrathi fleet, and fans have been clamoring for a Fralthi to give the kat forces some muscle. The shot below is the first teaser of the new enemy light cruiser in the game. You can see it fly by in motion here (19 MB gif).
Work in progress.
Small teaser for Fralthi cruiser of Kilrathi Empire
In all of the excitement late last month with Wing Commander joining Netflix, we noticed that the movie simultaneously disappeared off iTunes. Our theory was that it was related to Chris Roberts regaining the distribution rights and set off to investigate. But, before we could get too far, the film popped back up! You can once again pick it up in the iTunes store for $9.99. So while the entire ordeal turned into a relative nonevent, we bring it up here as a reminder to avoid disappointment later by grabbing things while you can. Even when Wing Commander disappeared from the storefront, people who had previously bought the movie retained the ability to see it and redownload it in their personal libraries. Netflix rotates through its catalog regularly, so it's still a good idea to grab a copy. The same goes for all other digital goods such as the Movie Soundtrack, Remastered WC1 Album, Wing Commander Arena, WC4 for Playstation and all of the GOG releases! The Bluray and Academy DVD sets are also still relatively common, but they're sure to be collector's items some day too. Our advice: strike when things are cheap and plentiful!
George Oldziey has provided a status update for the digital reorchestrations he's working on to round out his Wing Commander album. The supplemental 15 minutes of music is now a bit more than three quarters complete. Once this is wrapped up, the physical compilation discs can proceed. Also if you haven't seen his behind-the-scenes documentary, be sure to check it out! George also put together an awesome remix of the WC4 intro that recently went viral and was widely viewed around the world!
Greetings all! I'm still hard at work completing the digital orchestrations of the additional 15 minutes of music (on top of the 30 minutes recorded with the orchestra and choir). I've only got 3.5 minutes of music to go! In the mean time, here is a link to a documentary style video I edited of the recording process. I think you'll enjoy the behind the scenes glimpse!
We were going to post this one on Saturday, but it got missed in the crazy party shuffle! Richard H ran this one through the Straight Outta Compton memegenerator, and it was a hit on social media. It's definitely the best one I've seen!
It's time for the lucky and talented winners from Saturday night's party to claim their prizes. If you're one of the folks listed below, please submit your IRC name, real name and address now. If you had an unclaimed item from a prior year's party, now's the time to get in touch with us. A couple people we've talked to in the last few weeks are already covered and their items will go out with the batch below. Congrats again to the winners! If you couldn't make the party this year, we'll have the log up soon.
CIC Glass - Vinman
CIC Mystery Future Product - DaveO
CIC Polo Shirt (sumbit size) - FekLeyrTarg
Confed Replica Patch - Whistler
TCS Eisen T-Shirt (submit size) - Music_guru
WC Academy DVD set - Whistler, Capi (donated by DaveO)
Welcome Wingnuts to the celebration of the CIC's 17th Birthday! The years keep racing by faster and faster, and the site is now older than many staff members and visitors were in 1998 when we first set up shop at wcnews.com! To put it another way, the entire series wasn't even 17 years old when Wing Commander Arena was released in 2007. Incredibly however, traffic to the CIC is on pace to be 33% higher this month than a year ago. This is due to multiple factors, not the least of which is that a vibrant community attracts more followers, and all of the impressive things fans are doing are making this a better place every day. Now on to the birthday updates! To kick things off in style, check out this gorgeous image from DefianceIndustries!
The MaslasBrothers' impressive top-down Wing Commander shooter, Flat Universe, has been upgraded to version 0.8.5. It's a significantly more extensive beta than the 0.6.5 release that came out in January. Mission design, graphics quality and user interface/cockpit design have all gotten big updates. Pilots can now autopilot or jump to a whopping 15 systems via the nav map. There are also 8 new training missions. New players should consult the controls reference card to figure out what buttons to press, then grab the game in Windows, Mac and Linux flavors at Daedalus Station here!
Quick help: In free flight hit "m" to get to the map and you can select NAV point. As always "a" starts the autopilot. When you get close enough to the jump buoy hit "j" to get to then next system.
Also all the training missions are new. The NAV system also works here but if you want to finish the mission and check you score you must return to the TCS Formidable (that's the Exeter) and land.
Last year George Oldziey's successful crowdfunding campaign allowed him to hire a live orchestra to record our favorite parts of the Wing Commander 3, 4 and Prophecy soundtracks. Supplemental work continues to digitally remaster even more music, but here is the behind-the-scenes look at what happened in Bratislava! Crank up the volume, blow it up for the full HD version and prepare to get chills!
This is a documentary style account of the historic orchestral recreation of over 30 minutes of music composed by George Oldziey for Wing Commander 3, 4 and Prophecy. Taking place in October 2014 this recording of hand-picked selections by the composer was performed by the National Slovak Symphony Orchestra and the Lucina Choir and was conducted by Allan Wilson. This is dedicated to ALL the video music fans from around the world who so generously supported this project, and without whom it would have never happened.
NinjaLA has created some great Wing Commander art over the years. This time is no different. He's created an incredible scene as a Confederation force prepares to attack the mother-of-all-carriers, a Kilrathi Hakaga.
A deep space patrol catches a Kilrathi super carrier with its tail tucked between its legs. Attacking may be crazy, but they just might bag the pride of the fleet.
Plywood Fiend and the voice actors of A Defiant Few are back with Episode 6 of their Wing Commander audio adventure. Their story follows Admiral Sandra Goodin's valiant defense of the Gemini Sector against the Nephilim hordes. Check it out here, or find the links to previous chapters below if you need a refresher!
L.I.F. was up super late into the early hours of this morning to make sure a brand new iteration of the Homeworld Mod was ready to share today. Developer Gearbox released a major update to Homeworld Remastered this week, and it threw a serious monkey wrench into the works! Major portions of this (and all other) mods had to be recoded and adjusted to function again. In the long run after all the near term chaos, this will provide more flexibility and potential for new features. Today's new version 3.1 implements the beautiful new Border Worlds fighters that have been recently in the news. All four factions should be functioning again with AI back online and multiplayer available in beta with a command line switch. Try the game out here.
Latest update:
- A preview of things to come: three Border Worlds fighters in gorgeous HD, released for the Wing Commander CIC Birthday Party!
- Fix to have basic compatibility with the new update for the game (for the non-modders here, this update was a massive overhaul of the game structure, so everyone in the community is having a hard time updating their files, so please give us some time).
- This is the version 3.1b of the mod for Homeworld Remastered. All four factions are playable in addition to the vanilla ones. You can play both against the AI in local or in the beta multiplayer with people having this mod, by using the command line "-mpbeta -mod WC4FC_Remastered.big" in your Homeworld Remastered shortcut (found by Soulsavant).
It's been 25 years since the original Wing Commander was released in 1990. What an amazing quarter century it has been! So many advances, events, and discoveries have transformed the world we knew, well some of us knew, into the world we know. And yet, if we imagine 1990 as 2634 and push forward to today, the Terran-Kilrathi War still had 10 years of fighting before Colonel Blair dropped the Temblor Bomb on Kilrah!
As a special birthday edition of WC vs History we're going to take that idea of 1990 as 2634 and see where in the war would the last 25 years have been.
2634 / 1990
.186 - War is Declared! A pair of Kilrathi fighters attack and destroy the Anna Magdelena. The transport had been carrying orphans to their new home on Dieno. After five years of attacks and assaults, this action is the last straw for the Confederation. The Confederation officially declare war on the Empire of Kilrah.
.235 - .239 - The McAuliffe Ambush is the first major Kilrathi offensive of the war. The Confederation suffers horrible losses as the Kilrathi fleet is quadruple the expected size. More than 90 ships, including five carriers and four battleships, are lost along with more than a quarter million lives. The Kilrathi are turned back by an aggressive Confederation counterattack.
2639 / 1995
.033 - .040 - The Enyo Engagement occurs as Kilrathi occupation forces land on Enyo and McAuliffe. In the ensuing battle, casualties are nearly identical for both sides.
2639 - 2644 / 1995 - 2000
The two sides settle into a long and unending stalemate, creating tension along the frontier. Several Terran worlds declare independence from the Confederation as a prelude to declaring neutrality in the conflict.
2644 / 2000
The newly-launched TCS Tiger's Claw, on its shakedown cruise, carrying a minimal spacecrew and an under-experienced command, finds itself in the path of a surprise Kilrathi invasion force. The ship's unexpected presence along the Kilrathi flight plan, clever tactics on the part of the command crew, and performance above and beyond the call of duty by the spacecrews rout the superior Kilrathi force. Shortly thereafter, the Tiger's Claw is given a permanent assignment in Vega Sector
2648 / 2004
.305 - The Confederation succeeds in breaking the Kilrathi encryption code. In order to prevent a repeat of the McAuliffe debacle, Confed takes pains to ensure their interpretation of the code is accurate.
2649 / 2005
.189 - Terran Command, using information on Kilrathi fleets and deployments gained through their breaking of encryption methods, assembles a force consisting of 60% of the Vega Sector Fleet aimed at invading and occupying Kilrah itself. Given the overwhelming superiority in force and information as well as strategy,a victory seems well in hand.
.205 - Terran ground forces launch an attack on a fortified Kilrathi colony, only to be routed by unexpected Kilrathi fighter support. The TCS Tiger’s Claw is detached from its previous station and assigned to intercept the pursuing fighters in a delaying action eventually known as Custer’s Carnival. Swarmed and badly damaged by Kilrathi fighters, the carrier distracts Kilrathi forces long enough for the Terran fleet to reach safety.
2649 - 2653 / 2005 - 2009
Another period of stalemate as the two sides continue the fight.
2653 / 2009
Recent heavy losses in battles against the Kilrathi cause the 201st Plebe class of the Confederation's Space Naval Academy to replace the regular flight crews aboard the refurbished TCS Tiger's Claw, Commodore Geoffrey Tolwyn commanding. The cadets are supposed to complete their course of instruction while performing routine patrols and flight training. But, in war, anything can, and does, happen...
2653 - 2655 / 2009 - 2011
The Confederation signs an alliance with the Firekkans. Unknown to the Confederation and Firekkans, the Firekkan homeworld has been chosen by the Kilrathi as the site of their next Sivar-Eshrad ceremony. The Confederation decides to disrupt the ceremony in hopes of breaking Kilrathi morale. Confederation marines succeed in doing so and then retreat out of system with the Kilrathi in heavy pursuit.
2654 / 2010
.074 - .079 - Pilgrim separatists aid the Kilrathi in destroying Pegasus Station and securing its NavCOM AI, opening a direct path to Earth. Terran ships rush to defend the homeworld. The Tiger's Claw, the only ship between the Kilrathi fleet and Sol, fights desperately to delay the enemy advance. The delay is enough to allow Commodore Tolwyn to ambush the Kilrathi fleet as it jumps into Sol.
.184 - The Empire deploys its first stealth fighter, a specially modified Sartha with radar-reflective paint and a low emission drive. It is code-named "Strakha", meaning "hidden striker". Confederation pilots, working in pairs, manage to destroy the fighter. Stealth fighter technology is soon perfected.
.287 - Confederation intelligence reports that the Kilrathi are directing the war efforts from a starbase in Venice system. A small attack force of elite fighters is dispatched to the starbase. The starbase is destroyed and the Kilrathi are forced to move their central military command back to Kilrah.
Simultaneously, on the far side of the galaxy, the Battle of Repleetah begins.
.326 - Goddard Colony is destroyed a Kilrathi superweapon mounted on a Sivar-class dreadnought. The Tiger's Claw gives chase into Kilrathi territory where it eventually catches, and destroys, the ship.
2655 / 2011
The Tiger's Claw goes behind enemy lines to seek out and destroy the labs and shipyards that produced the Sivar dreadnaught and its superweapon in the Jakarta system.
2656 / 2012
The Enigma Sector Campaign commences.
The Tiger's Claw is transferred to the Enigma Sector. It is tasked with destroying the Kilrathi High Comamand base, K'tithrak Mang. However, the mission is a failure when the traitor, Zach Colson, alerts the Kilrathi of the ship's pressence. The Kilrathi use a squad of stealth fighters to destroy the carrier. Christopher Blair is blamed for the loss.
Crown Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka launches a strike on the Ghorah Khar shipyards, protecting the stealth fighter technology.
2657 - 2659 / 2013 - 2015
The Enigma Sector Campaign continues unabated as both sides attempt to secure the jump points that lead deep into the Confederation's inner worlds.
It won't still be for another five years, 2020/2664, that the Battle of Repleetah will come to an end. Even then, there's still five more years until Victory over the Kilrathi!
Over the years, Wingnuts have come up with various workarounds, patches, and methods to take advantage of the Wing Commander multiplayer options. That information has been scattered across dozens of places for years but we now bring it to you in one easy to access, and update, location: The Wing Commander Multiplayer Hub.
This is intended to be a "living document", where all wingnuts can add to it as new information and methods become available. Currently, Wingnuts can find information for Arena, Armada/PG, Prophecy, Prophecy GBA, WC Customizable Card Game, and Flag Commander (HW2 Mod).
Give it a look over and if you see any information missing, be sure to add it!
We post a lot of cool advertisements for Wing Commander products in the news, but it can be hard to find them all through the years. One of our goals with the CIC Document Archives section was to make it easier to research interesting aspects of history like this. We've gone back through and sorted dozens and dozens of cool items and categorized them under the headings below, and there are even more items in our personal collections waiting to be scanned in the future. There's also some neat promotional material in there in addition to printed sheets. As you browse around, you might notice CIC Gray is starting to look a little dated. There are thousands of pages of fascinating content floating around here, but it isn't all readily available. We'll be working on how to best organize what's out there and upgrading our navigation soon. For now, check out the ads below - they add a lot of pleasing color!
The Holovids section has been updated with a complete assortment of the videos from Privateer 2. AD has fully extracted the game's cinematics so fans can easily refresh themselves on the story of the Tri-System. This includes both the main plot missions and all of the special FMV side missions that many fans may have missed. If names like Ralph McCloud, Melissa Banks and David Hassan aren't familiar to you, then head over and get caught up! As an extra bonus, the high res landing cutscenes we pieced together several years ago have also been added!
It's time for our annual birthday poll! We know many of you have been around since the beginning, but there are lots of newcomers too. Where do you fit in?
The old poll inquired about the game with the best navigation map. Wing Commander 3/4 just barely edged out Wing Commander 1/2 by a tiny margin, and Privateer was also a very close third. I'm honestly shocked it was close at all. Who used the WC3/4 map for anything? I'd like to hear from people that voted for this option! It was relatively common to reroute nav points in the first WC and Privateer games, but by WC3, most pilots pretty much followed the assigned course. I didn't expect Prophecy and Secret Ops to have as strong a fourth place showing as they did, but the map in that game was actually quite useful for determining which enemy bombers were targeting friendlies during escort missions.
This year we've undertaken a bit of our usual updating and housecleaning around the CIC. Here are a few of the things to look out for.
The Background section now has links between the expansions and their main products, screenshots have been added to games that were missing them, and many items have been cross-linked to the Archives section. The Downloads section has been cleaned up and updated with many files mentioned in the news over the last few years but not indexed in our files area.
We've added a cool new feature to the news as well. Wingnuts have been able to use the On this day link from the Resources menu at the top of the page to see what was front page news on that day for every year of the CIC's history. In addition to that, there's now a date selection option. Wingnuts can browse any day, especially CIC birthdays, by using the selection boxes on the page.
In closing, we go back to the sentiment that we started with up top. As our new poll will show, many members of our community have been active for nearly twenty years! When the CIC staff first started getting involved with the online world of Wing Commander in 1995, we never could have imagined this is what we'd be doing in 2015. I can't even predict what things will look like in 2020, let alone another two decades forward into the 2030s.
It's all of the amazing things that Wingnuts continue to do that make this event and all our continued success possible here at the CIC. Work that fans like the Maslas Brothers, Klavs, DefianceIndustries, LIF, capi, Ninja, HCl, Scooby and Luke do are very helpful to our daily operations here by keeping a constant stream of new material flowing. We'd also like to thank Origin vets George Oldziey and Denis Loubet for spending so much time this year focusing on WC fans. I'd also like to personally thank my fellow CIC Staff members who do critical things behind the scenes to both keep the site running and make days like today possible. And if you made it this far and are still reading this post, then know that you too are one of the diehards that forms the backbone of the WC community. It takes a village - keep up the good work. We have many exciting days ahead!
To the Wing Commander Combat Information Center's 17th birthday celebration! TONIGHT at 7:00 PM Eastern US (4:00 PM Pacific and 11:00 PM GMT) in #WingNut!
Featuring...
Squadrons of fellow Wing Commander fans eager to trade old war stories!
Exciting new things to play!
Awesome new things to watch!
Hilarious new things to listen to!
Gorgeous new things to see!
Trivia - from Anti-Matter Guns to Zachary Banfield!
More prizes than the Grudge Pit bounty at Gar's Emporium!
Cake... and more!
So point your IRC client to irc.wcnews.com, channel #WingNut! If you need help with IRC check our #Wingnut section, or just use the web interface (even works on mobile devices!).
The Imperial News Network will be hosting a viewing party of the Wing Commander Movie tonight on Twitch! (Thanks to the mass availability that Netflix provides.) The special guest star will be Cloud Imperium Games' director Ben Lesnick, best known to the Wing Commander community as Bandit (LOAF). He'll be providing live commentary, sharing trivia and showing off some cool artifacts. You can watch on Twitch here at 6 PM US Pacific time (9 pm Eastern). It sounds like a fun way to whet your appetite in advance of the CIC Birthday Party tomorrow night!
Then, later on in the evening, the GRAND FINALE. Since the Wing Commander movie recently was added to Netflix in North America, we thought we’d take the opportunity to watch it together with you guys! And who better to watch it with than the one, the only, BEN LESNICK. That’s right! Ben will be joining us on the stream to tell us all the ins and outs of the movie, show off some cool collectibles, and just grace us with his presence.
The impressive Banshee that we reviewed in yesterday's news has now made the leap from rendering software to Homeworld engine. Despite their scaled down size, plenty of gorgeous detail is still clearly evident. We also get to see a small sampling of their impressive arsenal. This fierce little light fighter looks great in pictures here, and they must be even more slick in action! You can see how the Vindicator and Avenger look in the mod here.
***** TOP SECRET *****
Terran Confederation Office of Naval Intelligence
Colonel, we have acquired additional information about the latest fighter craft deployed by the Union of Border Worlds, which will be forwarded to your attention.
The Banshee is a fast, light, fighter armed with quad laser cannons for fast firing capability. Very nimble, it is, by all respects, a respectable adversary in skilled hands, with the agility and speed of recon fighters, but the durability of medium fighters.
Addendum: we have been reported that the Border Worlders are currently installing on this fighters prototype guns, code-named "Leech" and "Scatter". The information about those remains limited as of now, but according to our information, the Leech system might be a directed EMP weapon potentially capable of neutralizing our own strikecrafts while the Scatter would be some sort of short-range, high-energy gun characterized by a high dispersion of its shots. We know little about their combat capabilities, but advise caution.
Hot on the ion trails of the Vindicator and Avenger, DefianceIndustries is back with an extremely high quality Banshee model. It might be the closest to the Originrenders we've ever seen. All of the worn hull textures look authentic, and the engines are especially well done. The Homeworld mod is in for a treat with this one!
"Banshee jocks are the craziest S.O.B.'s on this tub. Just look at them! A bunch of wild-eyed speed freaks wanting to go tearing around space at over 500 KPS with underpowered shields and no armor to speak of strapped to as random a suite of guns and missiles as anyone could think of. They give me the willies just looking at 'em..." 2nd Lt. Stacey McGivers, BWS Intrepid, Excerpted from 'Carrier: A Life in the Union Militia'
Rounding out our UBW fighter collection is our favorite light fighter/interceptor, the Banshee. Spacecraft # 5291, "Dead Man's Hand" operating off the BWS Intrepid.
Klavs is well known for his Concordia models, but his latestrevision was unfortunately lost in a recent crash. His only recourse was to start over. The good news is that the ship is coming back together better than ever! There are still some areas yet to go, but the sleek shape and many hull details are already in place. Zoom in close to spot a cute little Broadsword for scale!
Crappity crap crapper crapperton crapity crap crap crap. I forgot to back up my Concordia 3d model... nooooooooooooooo!
The MaslasBrothers have released a special "anniversary edition" of Wing Commander Flat Universe's in-universe magazine, Destiny's Way. It's their biggest issue yet! There's a lengthy anchor article, "The hitchhiker's guide to Hawking Sector," plus numerous news updates and points of interest to travelers visiting Daedalus Station. They're not just
random tidbits - this issue is full of hints and cues about the next playable version of this popular fan made top down shooter. Check out the full 12-page PDF here (4.7 megs) to get in the mood, and stay tuned for more news soon!
Since it is the WC CIC birthday in one week we have prepared a brand new "Anniversary Edition" of our Destiny's Way magazine. :) Enjoy !!!!
Many of our longtime readers will recall that today is the actual anniversary of our site's grand opening - wahoo! We first went fully live at wcnews.com on August 10, 1998 in the lead up to the Secret Ops launch. Our annual birthday parties were traditionally held on this date for many years, but we've recently shifted towards a Saturday evening time to better fit more people's schedules. We're looking forward to seeing you this Saturday, but thanks for dropping in today as well!
Wing Commander editing legend HCl was reminiscing about his work on WC Academy, which ranged from minor tweaks (replacing a single ship) to more extensive EXE diving. Two patches from 1997 really stood out, adding some cool new features. If you can't find your copy anywhere, a digital copy is just $5.99 at Good Old Games.
This was basically an attempt of re-incorporating the Drakhai back into WCA. Copy the INTEL.* ships to the GAMEDAT folder, and DRAKHAI.EXE to the main game folder. Launch the game via DRAKHAI.EXE and something very cool happens: you can now select level 5 difficulty, which triggers Drakhai behavior: more resilient ships, the AI taunts you at the beginning of the encounter, and after enough damage, they will actually try to escape. Even the music changes when the encounter begins, which was actually a side effect of the patch and I thought it was pretty amazing :)
Ok, for this one, leave the INTEL.* files in GAMEDAT from the previous patch where they are, you will need them. Also backup WCA.EXE before unzipping the file, since it will be replaced by a patched version. Afterwards, launch IFF.EXE (at least once per Dosbox session), and then run the modified WCA.EXE afterwards. If the game hangs when entering combat, you forgot to run IFF.EXE (made that mistake last night myself when giving this a shot)
This patch is an extension of the previous one. Basically we have levels 1-4, plus level 5 for Drakhai! But.... what about friendlies? This patch allows you to select a "Level 0" skill level, which (from memory) is equivalent to Level 4, but allows you to have human pilots on your side. So you can have more complex scenarios: put a few friendly broadswords making torpedo runs on a few Ralatha cruisers, while you escort them on a lighter ship.
As an aside, this patch removes the default "friendly" setting of the Human Station, so if you have a station as Level 1-4, it will be considered an enemy.
The CIC turns seventeen years old this Monday, but we're once again moving the actual birthday event to the following Saturday to better accommodate people's busy schedules. So all Wing Commander fans are welcome to attend the virtual party in our IRC channel #Wingnut on Saturday, August 15. The gathering starts at the usual hour: 7:00 pm Eastern US (4:00 pm PDT), 11:00 pm UK time, or early Sunday in Asia and Australia. It'll be one of the most fun nights of the year with updated CIC sections, trivia, contests and door prizes - all in the company of your fellow fans. Newcomers can easily get started here. Our web client even works on mobile phones for fans who won't be near a computer. Visit early, email us or hit the Discuss link below if you have any questions. Hope to see you there!
Many people in the Twitterverse are reporting that Wing Commander is showing up in their "Popular on Netflix" feeds. Blinocac even got it as the initial splash display upon logging in. It seems like the movie shows up in different places for different people based somewhat on their viewing habits. For me, I see the film under "Exciting Movies." Whatever the category, it's just great to see so many people are having fun with it!
Two cocky pilots are Earth's only hope. An old story, but this time it's 2654 and cat aliens can jump through space.
Former Origin senior artist Denis Loubet has begun a new Wing Commander sketch. It will feature Mariko Tanaka during some downtime aboard the Tiger's Claw. He (and Glen Johnson) are responsible for the graphical style and character detail in the first WC game, so it'll be interesting to see his take almost twenty-five years later. Once the piece is all complete, one of his lucky Patreon followers will get to keep the physical copy! If you'd like to provide input on the sketch as it comes together, visit Denis' thread at the CIC Forums.
Here's a piece of giveaway art I'm doing for some lucky patron! Yes, it's Mariko, our favorite unflappable pilot! Once it's inked, I'll mail it off to one of my patrons! I'll post the final version soon.
Enjoy!
--Denis
Joe Garrity has uncovered a new sales sheet/announcement for Trade Commander, the draft title for Wing Commander Privateer. This one comes with some never-before-seen concept art that shows ideas for the game from early 1992. The first image shows the cluttered cockpit of a player's ship being attacked by some Centurion-alike fighters. A second picture shows a well developed idea for the promenade on New Constantinople. Further down we've also got some of Paul Steed's base concepts from mid 1992. You can find even more Privateer concept art in our development archive here.
Day MADE! Joe of the Origin Museum found a sales sheet for 'Trade Commander' with Privateer art I've never seen.
The Wing Commander Saga Plus Debug-Build Support Tool has gotten a big update. This is one of Luke's numerous programs to enhance the experience for fellow modders and technies who continue to build on the original Saga. Version 1.3 fixes a variety of miscellaneous issues that users encountered the last time around, and it adds new features such as the ability to check installations, improved log functions and better interface visibility. Learn more about the program and download a copy at the CIC Forms here.
If you get a virus alert, you're probably running Avast. It's reporting a false positive. Luke has carefully scanned the file so it should be clean.
This is not a real product, but we sure wish it was! Fakes Forge creates imaginary collector’s editions of games that don’t exist but sure ought to. The box cover merges Blair’s face from WC4 with the Star Citizen Bengal class carrier. It comes with an imaginary Saitek X52 and classic blueprints. Even Klavs’ Raptor makes an appearance! There’s lots of tiny little details that make it evident that the artist really knows their Wing Commander!
The player takes the role of a nameless pilot aboard the TCS Tiger's Claw, a Bengal-class Strike Carrier. The player gets to name the pilot and chose his callsign. The pilot (known in-production to Origin personnel as "Bluehair" after his most notable feature) quickly rises through the ranks of the flight wing, and (presuming the player performs ideally in the cockpit) eventually leads a strike on the Kilrathi High Command starbase in the Venice System.
completewalkthroughs has posted a full recording of Wing Commander for the Mega CD (commonly known as the Sega CD in the US). It's not the first time we've seen someone on YouTube profile the game, but playthroughs are still fairly rare. While the Super Nintendo version of the game was quite popular, relatively few people are aware of this console port. It's really a shame too, because this was the only direct DOS derivative to get full speech! Only the full Super Wing Commander remake comes close. Some of the voice actors are better than others, but all of the spoken lines really add a new dimension to the experience. Any favorites? Or do some grind on your nerves? Hit the Comments button and let us know!
There's a lot happening in the world of Wing Commander this month, so here's a quick recap of some highlights to keep in mind.
Wing Commander starts playing on Netflix today! There's already been considerable buzz on social media, and fans are organizing a group viewing. Visit the CIC Forums to participate.
The CIC's 17th Birthday Party is just two weeks away! We'll see you in #Wingnut on Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT). Don't miss out - it'll be a blast!
Ben Lesnick's world tour is about to commence! He'll be in Germany next week to make an appearance at Gamescom on August 7. The trip's set up to provide a status update on Star Citizen, but Bandit (LOAF) is always excited to meet fellow Wing Commander fans. People attending Dragoncon can also catch him in Atlanta during the first weekend of September!
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