Vintage Preview Reveals Early 1991 Origin Plans Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Shot97 has uncovered a fantastic preview of early '90s Origin plans. It dates back to the April 1991 issue of The One in the UK. This puts it very early in the development of Wing Commander 2, and as such, a lot changes between this point and release. You can see right at the head of the article is the Confederation corvette design which actually the Sabre model! It's painted up in green capship colors prior to being deemed a fighter (a similar process occurred with the Crossbow). They also talk about a mid 1991 release for WC2 and 1992 for WC3, which were a ways off from that. Speaking of delays, Strike Commander is also heavily mentioned, but it's called Ground Commander at this point. There's also mention of ports for the Genesis are arcades, whew!

An Appetizing Look at EA's 3DO Lineup Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's another interesting chapter in the tragically funky series of EA advertisements for the 3DO. We've previously reported on the prints that used a dead fish, cubic lard and fancy pastries to sell Super Wing Commander and Wing Commander 3. RetroDetect has recently posted pics of a whole EA Lard booklet that includes promos for both WC games, among other offerings for the console. There's no telling if the system would have been more of a success if the marketing firm here would have gone with slightly less disgusting subject matter, but at least the games were awesome! You can find the other pages here.
#3doThursday is cool & its fun.... But dont ever try to put a #3do up your bum! Instead, lets take a look at this product booklet featuring some Electronic Arts Lard!

Not Quite the Combat Information Centers for Disease Control... Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We're all living together in these uncertain times, and we've got a new poll up today that reflects this new reality. While we are all charged with needing to socially distance as much as possible today, people in the Wing Commander universe are also frequently required to go long stretches far apart from most others. Which one seems like the best way to avoid a pandemic to you? These are all challenging circumstances, and we are more successfully when we stick together (virtually). Hit the discuss link below and let everyone know how you're getting through this. Or visit us on Discord and chat with fellow Wingnuts in real time!

When we started the last poll in January, the coronavirus was still far from most of our minds. We asked about everyone's favorite communications options. "Break and Attack" was far and away the most popular choice with almost half the vote. About a sixth of people enjoy the taunt, and 12% really like asking to land. I was surprised to see that another 10% selected the option to send their wingman home, but I was even more shocked to see that just 1% picked "Help me out!"

Reorchestration Updates WC1 Theme Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Li Huang of Improbable Cadence has a musical treat for us today. He's put together a digital fan reorchestration of the original Wing Commander theme by Dave Govett/Team Fat. It uses the Roland MT-32 MIDI as a source of inspiration. The track's a faithful reproduction that really amps up the tone throughout! Listen below or grab the high quality mp3 here (5 megs).


I recently finished a rendition of the WC1 theme.

Kevin Droney Talks Wing Commander Script Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's an interesting German podcast that covers things like film and video games. The Wing Commander Movie is naturally an intersection of both, so it's no surprise they got around to the Wing Commander movie. The podcast features a discussion - in English - with the screenwriter of the film's first draft: Kevin Droney. The German site is here and you can find an English autotranslation here. Any German speaking fans out there want to take a shot at a summary or translation of the German parts?

The Droney portions of the conversation are actually part of a longer interview that covers his work on both Mortal Kombat and Wing Commander. The Wing Commander segment starts around the 43 minute mark. You can also find it on Apple Podcasts here.

In our interview, Kevin discusses how he created the story for MORTAL KOMBAT, a game that didn't really have a plot, and how he focused on the mythological aspects of the game's background. He talks about how Linden Ashby kept adlibbing lines and confusing his fellow actors, and he also talks about how his love for the Bruce Lee movies influenced the script. Kevin also shares his memories of developing the WING COMMANDER script together with Chris Roberts and exploring his sci-fi universe, and he discusses how the script got rewritten without his involvement and why the finished film doesn't really represent his original script. We also talked a little bit about another film that Kevin wrote, a drama starring Raul Julia and Laura Dern called DOWN CAME A BLACKBIRD, a captivating, serious story about a clinic for survivors of torture that shows Kevin's versatility as a screenwriter.
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Spacedock Highlights Midway Carrier Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Daniel from Spacedock has produced another wonderful profile of a Wing Commander ship. This one covers the Midway from Prophecy. He delves into the design's origins and how Blair was involved with the development. There are comparisons to the Vesuvius class as well as an overview of the ship's role in the Nephilim War (per Star*Soldier!). Spacedock is a wonderful channel with a huge reach, so we're elated to once again see Wing Commander in front of so many people!
Spacedock breaks down the experimental Midway Class Heavy Carrier, as seen in Wing Commander Prophecy.
Thanks to FekLeyrTarg, DefianceIndustries and HotT for the tip! Also check out these previous clips on the Yorktown (TCS Victory), BWS Intrepid and top carrier. Daniel happens to be a big WC fan, and he's previously spoken about how much he enjoys the series like WC that focus on specialized roles for each ship.

Toolbox Upgrades Reveal WC3 Details Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The WC Toolbox has been enhanced once again with more extraction support for Wing Commander 3. UnnamedCharacter has been able to pull out images for things like characters that overlay on top of the background scenes, but he's also found some interesting composite sets. What this means is that certain rooms were made in one pass, and then the game adds much of the interior look over that. Check out the images below to see the bar and crew quarters without all the tables, chairs and lockers! You can read all about the new update and how to use it at the CIC Forums. Grab the latest tools here.
Here's a few shots that show how the color palette changes based on the game's built in gamma correction.
Added more extraction support for WC3; this time something we can actually see. This update includes support for extracting an image representation of a palette; this is actually a little trickier than it might seem. The colors in WC3 are not simply presented as they are encoded in a palette. Instead, gamma correction is applied to brighten or even darken a scene if necessary. In DOS the options are more limited. Either gamma correction is disable which creates a very dark scene, or it is set to a low or high increase in brightness.

In Windows, a default gamma shift is set, but you can easily brighten or darken a scene in graduated steps. This is done by using a seed value to generate a mapping table which is used to shift the individual color components. When extracting a palette, I use the same default setting as in Windows, but you can specify a different value if you wish. You can also disable gamma shifting and produce the same effect as in DOS.

Kilrathi Characters Pounce Into Graphical Novel Territory Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

EmuMusicFan has reached a new milestone in his Kilrathi sketch project. He's been working on some fancy drawings for some time, but now the project has jumped up a level into the graphical novel realm. There are several mockups below that show how this would play out. There's even a prototype viewer that plays through the Action Stations prologue. It's pretty neat! Emu is also working on soliciting voiceover support to add an audio element for a future expansion.
OK. The screenshots of the Visual Novel demo is here. After all, I am not a native English speaker. The words that are different from the original and the new ones may be jerky. Please give me criticism and suggestions. If you would like to try it out (only prologue) online, click the link. Firefox is recommended for smoother performance.

Instructions Available for Confed Lego Ships Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Bricks with Wings has completed their Confed Lego fleet. The four original fighters, Tiger's Claw, Exeter and Drayman are now fully buildable. The transport clocks in at 208 bricks, destroyer at 253 and carrier a respectable 688. Digital instructions with all of the detail on how to put these together are available for $12 at the BWW store. You would still need to acquire the individual bricks, which is possible through a service like BrickLink. It's not the cheapest or easiest hobby, but it sounds like it's very rewarding and fun! You can also check out some of the Kilrathi vessels here.
Here's some nifty photos of the completed fighters!

This One's Odd Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's kind of a bizarre little video. Nacho Rolon is a Youtube account dedicated to posting short clips comprised of photos of printed work. It's mostly things like posters, but there's an odd book here and there. Somehow, the account has more than 3000 subscribers and 1.5 million views. Wing Commander 3: The Heart of the Tiger was recently added, but I'm not quite sure why. It's certainly a slideshow of photographs of the WC3 novelization!

Play Wing Commander All Day Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

BastichB 64K is kicking off a new series, called DOS Days, and he's chosen Wing Commander to inaugurate the first episode. This review is nice because it seeks to set the stage for what 1990 was like from both a pop culture and PC gaming perspective. The author played Space Rogue, but was blown away by Origin's next space game, Wing Commander. He credits the missions, music and interpersonal interaction for making it all so enthralling. There's also a shout out to all the great ports, such as the Sega CD version we mentioned in the news yesterday. They start to allude to the rest of the games in the series as well, but discussion on those will be mostly reserved for future episodes.
In this 1st episode of DOS days I jump back to 1990 and check out the original "Wing Commander" game.

Sega CD Speech Being Added to PC Wing Commander! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Destro has taken the wraps off an absolutely fantastic mod to add the voiceovers from the Sega CD version of Wing Commander back into the original! Lots of fans have talked about doing such a thing over the years, but it's simply mind blowing to see it in action here. If you're impatient, jump to the 2:00 mark to hear the speech in action. This isn't intended to just be a voice-enabled video of the game (that project already exists), rather, Destro is working on creating a patch that supplements the game to make this work as you play. There's still lots of work to be done before this is ready for distribution, but it's a very promising start! You can find more information on how this works and what's planned next at the CIC Forums here.
Hey all! I've been working on this for a few weeks now, sifting through the memory of Wing Commander 1 to try and find a way to insert the voice overs from the SegaCD version of the game. It began as an experiment to see if I could even do it and I think I've made some good progress so far and have decided to share it with the community. It's in a very early stages but with all that's going on in the world now and I have some time on my hands I figured I'd put some work on it. I've got the first mission completed, all the funeral scenes and some other bits here and there. The loader menu I made in about 15 minutes just to get something working and will be cleaner in the future.

Wing Commander Loader is built using a custom engine and script language I've been writing for the last few years and it allows me to make changes to the scripts and not require re-compiling. It's far from complete, re-inventing the wheel is difficult but I wanted to learn how to program so that's why I made it.

I built this around the KS version of the game with WCDX in mind so it won't work on the DOS or standard KS versions but once I map all the memory addresses I need, it shouldn't be hard to port to other versions. I hope. Check out an uncut video of it in action here as I test it out. :p

GOG Kicks Off Spring Sale Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

GOG.com has kicked off their Spring Sale, and this time it has a special emphasis for those who are able to shelter in place and hunker down at home. There are a handful of free games available to help jump start this effort. Most of them are lesser known, but the list does include Ultima IV, Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire and Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams. The Wing Commander games are broadly 75% off, so it's just $11.92 for the whole series. If you are looking at a significant amount of downtime coming up, catching up on your Wing Commander playthrough would be a great way to pass the time. And if all of the goings on this week are causing you stress, come on by #Wingnut and hang out with your fellow Wing Commander fans. It helps to talk!

Mysterious Excalibur Patch Surfaces Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

fringeaggressor recently came across this neat triangular piece in a group dedicated to real life military patches. It's pretty is unlikely to have been worn by any modern air force as it prominently features an F-103 Excalibur with a Confed star on the left wing. The origin doesn't immediately jump out to me either, but it's pretty darn cool nonetheless!
The following showed up in a Facebook group recently related to the F-14 Tomcat, which fits given squadrons used a triangular patch style this particular item mimics. Never noticed it in WC3, figured it was perhaps a prop item.

Indie Retro Three-Pack in the News Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Indie Retro News and Cola Powered Gamer have continued on through the Wing Commander series. When we last saw them, they had just completed a thorough review of Wing Commander 1. The author has continued on a fun romp through WC2, Privateer and WC3 in a similar style. Each article covers the basics on gameplay and story and then delves a bit deeper into the history behind the game, ports and developmental trivia. You can check out each one at the links below, and thanks to Jaysen Huculak for the tip!
A SNES port was announced in 1995 but was never released. This port of the game was finished, tested, reviewed by magazines and shipped to Japan, only to be suddenly canceled. A last-minute decision was made to cancel the game, because of the expectations of low returns on a SNES game at the end of the system’s life cycle.

Wing Commander II is an excellent sequel and is still able to provide an amazing gaming experience. The game was a receiver of numerous game rewards and was featured on several top video game lists. The game is available on GOG, and it works perfectly on modern systems. Give this one a try if you are looking for an excellent DOS space sim.

WC4 Remake Experiments With Advanced Upscaling Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's a potentially promising teaser of what might be possible for the WC4 Fan Remake. Pedro's recently done some experimentation with AI-assisted video enhancement, and the results are surprisingly positive. He reports that the ability to upscale still images is fantastic, so this will help sharpen up the game flow sets at least. There's a lot of work yet to be done to refine the video elements, but this promising technology will likely improve by the time the remake is ready to go. What's already possible seems to border on something from Star Trek, so we can't wait to see how it develops!
For stills it's excellent, we can definitely use this tech to up res the room images. For motion a lot of artifacts creep in. Still by the time WCIV is good to go I bet this technology will be good enough. If they can fix eyes in motion it would be useable; currently it's recognising shapes rather than features. For a face that's a problem It could happilly be used on CG scenes.

Mike Winterbauer Creating Power Blade Portfolio Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Artist Mike Winterbauer, who now has several successful art-driven Kickstarters under his belt, is in the midst of a new campaign for the work he did on Powerblade. The original Nintendo game Powerblade box features a futuristic dude wearing sunglasses in a tank top while holding a gigantic power blade. Until this point, I had no idea that Mr. Winterbauer was the actual power blade guy! He posed for the scene in 1991 and then painted it accordingly for the box cover. I never played the game itself, but I do very much remember it on store shelves in the early '90s. For any fans of the game out there, a handful of cool prints will be available in a similar fashion to his Wing Commander portfolio project. You can learn more and back the campaign here.
This Kickstarter is raising funds to create awesome collectible prints for the iconic NES game Power Blade and show the process of repainting the cover. I will be actually recreating my classic Power Blade painting for this KickStarter! At each stage of this painting I will be showing and explaining the creative process. This is a wonderful opportunity to see how classic traditional cover art is created.

The cover of Power Blade is actually a portrait of myself. It is not every day that you get your portrait on the cover of a Classic Nintendo game.

I was very excited when I was asked to paint a cover for the Power Blade game that had a Terminator feel to it. I am a huge fan of the movie and of Arnold. This was a challenge to come up with a cover that felt like Terminator but was original material. I needed to portray the main character from the game Nova holding his cool boomerang in a futuristic environment that felt like Terminator. I realized that I would need original reference to paint from and I always took my own photos to use as reference. So I set up a photoshoot that had a Terminator feel to it, which really is all about attitude.

See What Hawk's up to These Days Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

In keeping with our more positive vibe this week, here's a heartfelt video of the multi-talented Chris Mulkey singing "High on Love" and talking about his various talents, hobbies and motivations. He shares exactly how he got into acting, which is a good story. We might know him as the hard nosed pilot Hawk in Wing Commander 4 & Prophecy, but in real life he's a great singer and really funny too. The clip is ultimately an ode to his late wife with interview clips of his daughters interspersed throughout for further context. Enjoy!

Bloopers to the Rescue Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's a stressful time out there right now for a lot of people. Some are worried that a loved one might catch the deadly coronavirus. Others are being impacted by the devastating economic slump that it has caused. Schools are closing, and you can't even take the kids to Disneyland. Although we in no way can claim to be as inspirational as Tom Hanks, we can offer you a few light hearted moments of Wing Commander joy to help take your mind off things. Here's the blooper reel and 'making of' clips off the Wing Commander 3 Behind the Screens discs. It looks like the filming of the game's FMV was an absolute blast. You can find more in the CIC Holovids. Have fun with the videos!


Bloopers from various scenes and brief interviews with Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson and Ginger Lynn Allen.

Command & Conquer Remastered Collection Announced Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Electronic Arts today released a ton of detail on the upcoming Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. It looks like an absolute treat for fans of the classic real time strategy game series. For starters, they've included developers who worked on the original game at Westwood Studios 25 years ago to build around the original core. All of the assets have been upgraded to 4K quality and the user interface has been modified to modern standards. The classic full motion video has been upscaled to match, and they even got the original composer back to remaster the music! It's set for release this June and will only be $20 on Steam and Origin. Even crazier, there will be a couple of super nice physical special editions produced by Limited Run games. The $60 version includes a poster, enamel pins and a Tiberium Crystal that also includes the soundtrack. For $150, you can get all of that plus patches, a hat, metal mammoth tank replica, Obelisk of Light & Tesla Coil light-up mini statues, an autographed soundtrack and 100 page art book. Pretty wild!
It’s time for your first in-depth look at the Command & Conquer™ Remastered Collection, featuring both Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert along with their three expansion packs!
Here at the CIC, we've covered the happenings of the C&C series for many years. Most of the CIC Staff used to play Command & Conquer games together online back in the '90s when we just had dial-up modems. Although the style of play is vastly different than Wing Commander, there are several similarities: it was a series well known for its FMV, the developers were eventually both bought by Electronic Arts, their genres both largely went out of style in the early 2000s, and they both have "Command" in the name. Malcolm McDowell even starred in 2009's Red Alert 3 expansion, and they reused footage from Wing Commander 4 in the advertisements. These factors have led us to treat it as something of a sibling series to the WC franchise, but their paths over the past 20 years couldn't have been more different. Despite the overall downtown in the RTS genre, EA manages to come up with a new sequel every few years. Some have been canceled and some have been bombs, but time after time, the company is willing to go to bat and fund another Command & Conquer. We love C&C, so that's awesome, but we also wonder why the same hasn't happened for Wing Commander and dream about what could have been. And we'll be picking up this game in June so that EA knows there's still plenty of folks out there interested in stellar remasters of classic '90s hits!

They're Boxy but They're Good Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here’s the Union of Border Worlds’ Avenger torpedo bomber! The Avenger was introduced in Wing Commander IV as a flyable ship.
The Avenger was named in honor of the TBF Avenger, also a carrier-based torpedo plan. In lore it was said to have been built by Saab Engineering, a nod to Origin 3D artist Pauline Saab.
The Avenger made one more appearance in the Wing Commander canon: a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo as a renegade shuttle in the second episode of Academy. You can see the scale is way off: compare the 33-meter Avenger to what should be 28-meter Dralthi parked nearby!
Here’s the original concept sketch for Wing Commander IV!
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Wingleader Code Shows Off Kilrathi Pilot Logic Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Anatoly Shashkin has posted another awesome bit of WC history. He's shared several pages of preliminary programming for Wingleader, which was the intermediate name for Wing Commander before release. The depiction includes some of the methodology behind how the Kilrathi approach a target, maneuver / evade and retreat for home. It's pretty cool to see what eventually turned into the pilot behavior that we all know and love! You can find more great throwbacks on the DOSNostalgia Twitter feed.
Some AI code from Wingleader, a game that eventually became Wing Commander
LOAF added this bit:
Anyone can have a look at this! The BRAINS.C file shown here was included with the Wing Commander I rolling demo and will open right up in a text editor. (And anyone interested in the WC1 AI should check out the Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide which reprints exactly how each enemy and ace 'thinks'.)

Lots of Thought Going Into Kilrathi Drawings Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

EmuMusicFan has continued to experiment with and refine his art style for the Kilrathi characters he's sketched out of Wing Commander Action Stations. Here's a few different techniques employed on Baron Vakka nar Ki'ra. And while at first it might look like this guy could pass for any noble Kilrathi, Emu has put a lot of thought into how the look exemplifies the attributes of each character. Some of his rationale is included below!
When reading certain scenes of Action Stations, I really feel that this book depicts the Kilrathi as a relatively complex civilization, not just a simple fierce brutal race. There are complex relationships and politial issues among the clans. So I am trying to imply different feelings to different characters.

Let's see Gilkarg and his two sons, Ratha and Thrakhath. These three characters are definitely villains. But they are not the same. Gilkarg's actual military ability is not as good as it seems to be. So I portray him with a luxurious but a bit shallow and frivolous look. Ratha is foolhardy and rude. Even Thrakhath was young by that time, he was definitely the most dangerous one among them, so I depict his gaze the same as it is in WC2.

Admiral Nargth, a straight-laced professional military man with outstanding judgement and self-control. I guess we could see him as a respectable opponent, rather than a simple alien boss in the games like DOOM.

Now let's talk about the three characters of Ki'ra. I think in certain scenes of Action Stations, Baron Vakka nar Ki'ra and Jukaga are protagonists, let alone Harga. Baron Vakka not only recognized the problems in Kilrathi civilization, but also feeled distasteful and troubling on the barbaric behaviors of the Empire. I am trying to portray him an old wise bird with a feeling of dignified without anger, gracious but could not be offended. Though juvenile Jukaga was so naive at that time, he realized a lot as soon as he meeted Dr. Abram. Actually I referenced Kion from The Lion Guard Season 3 and Link from The Legend of Zelda. Harga... I think this character gives me a kind of... say, open and clear, "sunny" feeling. So I guess I should portray all of them with the feelings beyond fearsome predators.

Moongate Surveys in Your Mailbox Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Surveys have been released for Through the Moongate, from Wing Commander and Ultima VII to Portalarium. This means that people who pledged for the book on Kickstarter can now go in and confirm their addresses for shipping. There are two big points associated with this, however. First, the team has made it super easy to add supplemental items. Fans can add €30 for a cool piece of cloth art that includes a Kilrathi warrior and Dralthi fighter. It's also just €3 to add one of Denis Loubet's Wing Commander bookmarks! You can even put in €6 for two more. These are only available via this campaign, so I would take all you can get of this awesome collector's item!
All artworks are done. The back cover by Manda is ready and beautiful with a lot of references to the history of Origin Systems Inc. It will be printed on every edition of Part II and it will also be printed on cloth. Also Denis Loubet's artwork, the Wing Commander themed bookmark, only needs to be printed as well. Through the Moongate patches are ready; Edward Vitralis prepared the artwork and executed the production.
Lastly, production of certain items in China has been severely limited by the coronavirus outbreak, and this has affected the project. Things appear to be moving forward, but it's hard to predict an exact shipping date because of this. What's more, author Andrea Contato lives right outside the Italy quarantine zone where a large outbreak is taking place, which adds plenty of additional stress and potential obligations. Coincidentally, both LOAF and I - on opposite coasts in the US - have confirmed active cases of the virus in both of our own hometowns, so we can certainly sympathize. Stay safe out there everybody!
As you may know, Andrea, the author of Through the Moongate, lives in Bergamo, Italy, near the quarantined zone. The good news is that Andrea and his family are ok.

It's impossible, right now, to estimate how this crisis will evolve and affect the fulfillment of this Kickstarter with shipping and trade restrictions. We all hope that it will be over soon; meanwhile, we are doing everything we can to complete every production step, knowing that we still have a lot of time before shipping the books.

Origin Form is a Blast from the Past Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Origin programmer and tester Allen Jackson shared this awesome artifact from the golden days at OSI: a job application to work at the company. It's pretty neat to see exactly what they asked (was it a big issue at the time to have applicants when recalled from a layoff?). This is also a pretty stark reminder of what a different era it was. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any major company in 2020 that even accepts a paper application. I'm sure we have visitors to the site today who've never seen one before. And now it's pretty easy to find open jobs and submit from anywhere in the world. Back in the '90s, how would it even work to apply from out of state? Could you call them up and get them to mail you a form? Maybe it could be faxed? As Google moves to exclusively video interviews this month due to the coronavirus, I wonder if they'd have entertained an audio phone interview?
Some might recognize this. It is from around 1994/1995. Enjoy the memories.

See the Hellcat's Wild Side Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

If you don't know by now, NightBall06 is a big Hellcat fan. He's done a number of computer assisted sketches this year, and here's another with some new additions. There's some detailed side-by-side with the original source image that gives you a clear sense of what the inspiration was, how close things are and where there's some slight artistic license. Based on the popular theory that the Confed Wildcat and Hellcat share a common lineage, he's based a few aspects on this "updated vintage" methodology. There's also a cool top/bottom plan view that's reminiscent of some of the Tiger's Claw original ship drawings.
I think this one belongs here too... A sideview/topview comparison that helped me to remain on course... It contains some minor updates (I also updated the image from before) especially at the rear engine part and the „little nose scanner“.

Take a Quick Trip to the Gemini Sector Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Rhystic Gaming has created a thorough video review of Wing Commander Privateer. Playing through Priv and its spinoff, Righteous Fire, has been a popular activity in our live All Wings Considered streams. The clip below makes for a really solid overview of the major features, options and highlights of the game. Music and the satisfying gunplay get specific nods, which I also consider absolutely tremendous aspects of the game. Even though you're probably more than familiar with these elements, it's still a simple joy to hear others gushing over things that you have also had so much fun with.
Wing Commander: Privateer is the precursor of many open-world space simulators, and was widely praised when it released in the now-distant 1993.

All About Wing Commander Patches! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Since everyone is now an expert on space patches I thought it might be fun to share a thread of the prop ones made for Wing Commander! This first one is used on all of the uniforms in Wing Commander III:
It’s called the ‘combined forces’ emblem because it was worn during the war by all branches of the Confederation military: marines, army, space navy and, yes, space force. It also had a blink-and-you-miss it cameo in the Wing Commander movie!
Wing Commander IV updates this to the post-war ‘Unified Space Command’ patch. They also designed new patches for the Union of Border Worlds and the Black Lance which appear as loyalties shift!
Wing Comnander Prophecy continues to use the USC patch and adds these unit emblems for the Midway’s fighter wings. These only appear on the leather bomber jackets that are occasionally worn between missions.
Three unit patches (Tiger Claw, Concordia and Pegasus) and a general Confed star show up in the movie. The physical props are printed on a thin martial that’s more like those worn by the Apollo astronauts on the moon than standard embroidered military patches.
There was also a tradition of awarding the game developers unit patches for the projects they worked on. The Privateer 2 patch was also sold to the public in deluxe editions of the game.
Not quite patches but also great, the movie had nose art designed for each character’s fighter. (Bossman’s Rapier used the wing logo.)
The Confederation Handbook also has a few fun emblems inspired by the movie patches:
The CCG has squadron logos for 80 different human and Kilrathi squadrons. Too many to share here but you can find every card scanned at ccg.jetlag.us
The ‘team shirt’ for the CCG has one and it adds a bit of cool lore, too (a marine unit?!) I own this one because it was left over after Mark Hamill didn’t want to wear it at Gencon in 1996!
The Wing Commander Academy (game) team got a cool emblem shirt too... designed by the late, great Paul Steed. Finding one of these is one of my big collecting grails!
The other Wing Commander Academy has shoulder patches too but there’s no visible detail. Easy cosplay option though!
That’s it for Wing Commander patches! Shout out to this book for making me OBSESSED with real space patches as a kid.
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LOAF

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