Look Back At The Leading Edge Of Great FMV Games

Announcing 2015 Winners!

We got off to a bit of a late start this year, so I'm happy to finally be able to announce who won our annual contests. There were more nominees than ever before, so fans had some tough choices to make, but some clear winners rose to the top. And here they are:

The winner for 2015 Fan Project of the Year is Wing Commander is the Homeworld Remastered Mod, also known as Flag Commander! L.I.F. has been on fire lately beefing up and enhancing the Homeworld mod that he inherited from czacen. Not only has he upgraded it to be compatible with the core game's rerelease, he's completely overhauling the ship models, adding entire new factions and coming up with new game mechanics to keep things fresh. The project has also had to be nimble to contend with engine changes by the developers and has established relationships with other models to share assets. Wingnuts clearly appreciate all the work - the Homeworld mod received more votes than any other project this year.

Since we had so many nominees this year, we've decided to award three different runners up for 2015. All had a very strong and very close second place showing with your votes.

Wing Commander Writer Relaunches His Classic Tabletop Game

Longtime Wing Commander documentation master David Ladyman has just kicked off a new project and would appreciate support from fans of cool sci-fi board games. Nearly thirty years ago he created Star Traders. In it players compete to pick up and deliver cargo across the galaxy while managing their income and investments. Mr. Ladyman reclaimed the rights a while back, and with the help of Cloud Imperium Games artist Ryan Archer, is attempting to refresh, enhance and reproduce the game. One really nice aspect of Star Traders is that there are different complexity levels built for people who want a shorter experience or are playing with kids. Alternately, optional rules can be engaged that extend the length to several hours for serious gamers. I love tabletop games and I'm a big fan of his work, so I've contributed my part to make the game a reality! As of this writing, there are about 100 "early bird" slots left where people can get a copy of the final game for $40 rather than $50. Find more info here.

• As a F/A-57 Sabre heavy attack fighter pilot! In the losing mission of Special Operations 1's third series, you are sent to rescue Ghorah Khar space forces commander Colonel Marnier... and her wingman, Ladyman!
• As a quadrant of space! The Ladyman Quadrant is located in the Hawking Sector, on the far spinward edge of the Terran Confederation. Bonus: Ladyman is home to the David System! Map included with Wing Commander Prophecy.
• .. and again as editor of Victory Streak, onboard magazine of the TCS Victory (CV-40)! (That's August 9, 2669.) That's the manual for Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger.
• As the editor of the CDATANET, as accessed by 2nd Lt. Blair in 2654! (Along with some other familiar names!) Found in the credits of the Wing Commander movie's technical manual, the Confederation Handbook.
• As part of The Wrecking Crew. Okay, this bio from the Wing Commander Armada Playtester's Guide isn't really in-canon... but it's still pretty neat!

Every Wingnut Needs Star*Soldier

Jesse Cox Picks Wing Commander

Chris Roberts Gets His Gigabits On

Mark Hamill Keeping Busy With New MOO, More Games & Movies

Explorers! Master of Orion has assembled a star-studded cast of acting talent who have leant their voices to the game’s galactic inhabitants. In this video, you can discover which names from the world of science-fiction, horror and video games are behind the eclectic races.

Hamill: "Off on another galactic adventure.And what a star-studded cast! I'm the only one I've never heard of."

WC Saga Deutsch-Mod Updated With Fixes & Tweaks

P2 Demo Saved From The Ether By Fans

Today we're looking at a little known file that was released 19 years ago today. The demo for Privateer 2: The Darkening actually has a somewhat shrouded past. Even though it was released in early 1997, Origin only arranged distribution for a limited number of magazine cover discs and not on its own FTP server, so relatively few people are familiar with it. Unlike the Prophecy demo and other preview releases, there also wasn't much in the way of new story to see here, so there wasn't a big reason for players at the time to hunt it down. Fortunately, Wing Commander fans save everything, and it exists now in our archives.

There are two new clips with Joe the Bartender, and there's a special time limiter counting down the available free play time in the Tri-System. The Booth is disabled, so options are limited, but emails go come through with emergent missions. For P2 fans, it exists as a pretty interesting artifact, and for Wingnuts who never played the game, now's your chance for a taste! Grab the zip here (53 megs). It installs and runs in DOSBox. If you get a memory error, create a separate empty directory and install there. Check out the background section for controls and other reference material.

Delightfully Tachyon, Yet Unrefined

Mild, Hot, or Ghost Pepper, you're the commander of all things buffalo-flavored.

LOAF Surfing Live Streams This Weekend

Tiger's Claw Patrols The Wild Purple Yonder

got one of my digital paintings printed on canvas just to see how it holds up. I like it

Wing Commander Series Profiled In The Playroom

• WC3
• WC4
• Prophecy
• Evolution of WC1-3

Prophecy Unlimited Removes Even More Barriers

Updates:
• FastList::add increased from 44 to 126. I can make it higher but there is a performance hit which may need more in-depth updates. The FastList seems to be a "Who is targeting me" list that all ships have.
• Max number of fighter turrets increased from 6 to 32.
• Max number of capship turrets increased from 32 to 256 - You can finally give that Hvar'kann all 38 pairs of its teeth or the Vesuvius all of those extra documented turrets you never see in game. (not quite there, get an occasional crash. I have to update 30+ locations so one is probably a little wrong somewhere)
• Can control which guns do damage capship components.
• Can control which guns make a shield impact like most guns, or a hull impact like plasma guns.
• Can let AI ships know it has gun capable of component damage so they can target them. In doing this I can see why AI Devastators never target capship components with the plasma gun.
• Found an unused function that allows guns to ignore fighter shields and/or armour.
• Can control missile turret refire delay (refire delay is based on difficulty level)

Plans for the future:
• Use the bullet refire delay for turrets instead of being fixed at one second.
• Look into the possibilities of WC3 style, WC4 style and Privateer2 style turret firing.
• WC3/WC4 style fighter guns.
• See if I can find out why capship turrets fire at dead capships.
• Look at making all fighters available in the simulator including different variants.
• Look at the possibility of increasing the number of ships, bullets and missiles the engine allows.

WC RPG Branches Out Into Complex Encounter Maps

My great trudge through Chapter 2.1 of the Elegy campaign continues, though this past week I feel like I actually made some progress. On Monday, I was able to finish up the text of the Setup and Results sections of the Engine Room encounter, and began work on the Setup of the Elevator encounter, work which continued on Tuesday though it didn't see a terrible amount of progress then. I found myself in need of a quick re-read of a section of False Colors, specifically the part where Bondarevsky and company board the picket Wexarragh, are fighting their way towards the ship's bridge and meet resistance. Work continued with a relatively full day on Thursday, where I worked on the Setup section of the Bridge encounter and completed the Results section of that same encounter. Some work also took place on the dialogue of the mission epilogue on that day, and I also took some time to do a little bit of translation work. Finally, I completed the results section of the final encounter in the chapter on Friday.

New Vision Engine Tutorial Helps Fans Get Into Modding

Here is the first tutorial for modding Vision with a vanilla install. I know it's kind of putting the cart before the horse a bit (since I still don't have a complete update pack) but I wanted to write it while it was still fresh in my head. Anyway I thought I could contribute to everyone's light after dinner reading.

CIC Awards Season in Full Swing

Happy Birthday Wing Commander IV!

Retro Review Fondly Remembers WC3

This game BRIMS with personality. Each cohort you fly with has a unique attitude that is affected by your actions in-game. High morale usually translates to them flying better for you, whereas low morale will impact their performance. The AI does leave a lot to be desired however. More than once my wingman flew into a missile I’d locked onto an opposing ship and exploded. I wouldn’t have minded so much if it weren’t for the fact I was court marshalled when I landed. I was, however, grateful that they survived. Each character is unique and nuanced enough that you’re going to fall in love with them all, for different reasons.

Plastic Turbines To Speed...

Tried my hand at a #Lego version of a Salthi

Ninth Issue Of Destiny's Way Released

The first issue of D'sW for the year 2016 is out. As usual you may grab your copy with the usual methods or read it directly from the Flat Universe homepage. This one is a unique, since it contains a special cover page with screens coming directly from our game engine and a short, short story instead of an article.

In the meantime, the MaslasBros studio is almost finished. In other words! Hold your appetite because there are lot more and funnier things to come.

Defiance Industries Meets Douglas Aerospace

I've got two Hellcats, one for each of ya...

They did a very nice job making the WC4 Hellcat look vastly different than its WC3 counterpart. It's likely a different model than its predecessor, since it has particle cannons in place of the lasers (neutrons?), but the lazy way would be to just recolor the texture and call it a day, they moved the particle guns out of the chin mount and embedded them in the fuselage.

Really, I think the Hellcat is probably my favorite fighter of the WC3/4 Era with the Excalibur a close second aesthetically speaking. Yes the Excal mops the floor with anything Human or Kat, but the Hellcat just looks like a fighter. I dunno, anyway enjoy!

Who Would You Be?

GOG Discounts EA Games by 60-85%

Complete your Electronic Arts collection with a 85% discount or get 60% off each EA game!

Hey, know what time it is? That's right, it's time to complete those marvelous EA collections! Are you on the hunt for some elusive Electronic Arts classics missing from your GOG.com shelf, perchance? Well go ahead and grab the ones that got away or the whole EA Completionist Pack with a whopping 85% discount! But if you are still among the uninitiated, you can always take advantage of the enticing 60% discount on each game, to get your bEAutiful collection going.

WC Toolbox Adds Ship Editing Feature

<Ship ClassIdentifier="12" Radius="100" Mass="125" MaximumScale="1024" PowerPlant="5" Fuel="200000" Damage="5" Explosive="4000" MaximumSpeed="42" ... Shields="40 40" Armor="45 40 30 30">
  <Weapon ShipIndex="24" HardpointIndex="0" Selected="true" />
  <Weapon ShipIndex="24" HardpointIndex="1" Selected="true" />
  <Weapon ShipIndex="28" HardpointIndex="2" Selected="true" />
  <Weapon ShipIndex="28" HardpointIndex="3" Selected="false" />
  <Weapon ShipIndex="29" HardpointIndex="4" Selected="false" />
  ...  
</ships>

Kilrathi Durasteel Polished For Homeworld Mod

- brighter Kilrathi ships, from the Kamrani to the Hvar'Kann
- much, much more effective missiles, as from now on, anti-fighter missiles can reasonably be expected to kill enemy fighters in one or two hits if they connect, and they WILL connect unless you are doing a lot of dodging maneuvers or, for light fighters, you outrun the missile. They will also be largely more reliable as to intercept enemy cruise missiles... if you angle your shots correctly (a deflection shot is much less likely to hit than a rear or frontal shot, like in real life).

-- FF missile: very agile, short range, low damage, 9 seconds worth of fuel, usually carried by bombers for self-defence purposes
-- ImRec missile: agile, intermediate range, intermediate damage, 15 seconds worth of fuel, usually carried by medium fighters
-- IR missile: minimum agility, long range, high damage, 20 seconds worth of fuel, usually carried by light fighters for sniping

Keep in mind too that as all units tend to fire more at missiles, a frontal encounter between several flights will probably end up with some missiles being shot down before impact. But now, getting the drop on an unaware flight from missile range can be quite devastating.

Wing Commander Finally Gets Its Due?

DOS was no stranger to 3D space combat simulators, and while there were some incredible titles to be had, not many gamers seem to recall the original Wing Commander too much these days.

Like some cheesy 80s sci-fi film, the intro credits roll to heroic music, space dogfights, and passing asteroids. Then it’s to the bar on-board the TCS Tiger’s Claw for a spot of chitchat with the crew, including Paladin’s magnificent mustachios.

With girly pin-ups in the barracks, blue hair, scenes of the crew running to their ships, and such names as Blue Devil Squadron and the Killer Bees, Wing Commander was a hit from the word go. It was a breakthrough game, utilising the current PC hardware to the max. Playing now, it’s amazing how difficult the game actually is.

Ron Cobb's Wing Commander Concept Art Found!

Star Citizen Fan Creates Wing Commanderific Squadron 42 Box

Star Citizen "Squadron 42" PC Big Box Design - Wing Commander 3 Style:

I recently got my copy of Wing Commander 3 "Heart of the Tiger" and thought: wouldn’t it be nice to recreate this cover for Star Citizen "Squadron 42"? I’m really happy with the end result.