Wing Commander: Covert Missions (was: SM 1.5 (Working Title))

I had subscriptions to both EGM and Gamepro back in the day and specifically remember those issues. The anticipation I had was palatable. I was going to order it special from CDW. :(

We know the final ROM was sent to Japan for mass production and then nothing? Could the prototype be sitting in some forgotten closet at Nintendo? I imagine you folks made several inquiries? Maybe it's sitting on a shelf in Satoru Iwata's office? Lost at sea? :confused:
 
ChrisReid said:
Finding WC2 SNES is one of the last few lost holy grails that we continue to search for
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There's even another interesting bit of history here on the CIC: https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Wing_Commander_II:_Vengeance_of_the_Kilrathi_(SNES)
Most interesting is the last question of the Q&A with Billy Cain:

Do you have any idea where the prototype could be today?
Yes.
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Well, my dearest CIC staff. Where have you hidden that gem? I guess you're meeting each Friday in a secret place and play WC2 SNES! Confess!
I'm pretty sure it's hidden somewhere, on one of Loaf's cloaked Cloud-storage-devices, next to the WC source-code, the real script of the Wing Commander movie and the gold-master discs of Privateer 3, Privateer Online and Wing Commander Online (or, rather the ISO files of them).

Seriously, if even Ben can't ahold of it, who can?
 
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I put this animated gif together real quick. I imagine there should have been more frames with the rest of the text on them like these. If not that is strange. Hypothetically I could type the whole text in manually and create the whole thing. But I don't know that we really need that and I really just did this for fun.
upload_2015-4-17_21-41-34.gif


If the curtain opening sceene could be ripped out I would appreciate that as I presently use a screen capture of that for the covers of my scripts. If I could get the actual images I could piece it together better.
Thanks! :D
 
I was excited to see this was being worked on, and decided to record my impressions of both the patch as well as the story line of "1.5". It's an in-depth review of them both, and I was hoping the author of the patch might take a look at it in case some visuals might help him improve anything. I don't think I mention anything that hasn't been written about here already, though. I have shots of the Colonel's office issue, the Jazz/Bossman issue, one line where the Colonel speaks as the narrator, wingmen appearing/not appearing when they should/should not during debriefings, and the ending issues with Shotglass showing up and the bad ending despite winning every mission. I also talk about an issue not discussed here, which would primarily effect those playing in real DOS (which is why I guess no one has discussed it) in that the included .bat files to backup/place the files needed to run this patch do not work in actual DOS. A 4 character extension is used for the files (example - module.sm15) when DOS will only deal with 3 character extensions. These must be manually transfered for those using actual DOS (shown in video).

The video is also an extensive review of the storyline elements of "1.5". I focus a bit more on the storyline than the patch, as I've only seen a tiny bit of video on Super Wing Commander (doesn't seem to any full play-throughs of it online) and wanted to show what was added in that. There's some harsh words included in the review but it's primarily for the story, which I assume has been straight ported and is accurate to Super Wing Commander.

My primary excitement for this is that I really hope it can provide ways to make fan hacks for the game. The first two Wing Commander's I feel are so right for that kind of activity. I don't get into many hacks, but I have definitely enjoyed a few Mario and Sonic hacks in my life and would love to see some good fan missions and dialogue, maybe some new characters.

There are, of course, spoilers in the video but I hope anyone who is interested will take a look at it. A bit of a shameless plug but at least it's relevant and inspired by this patch, so, hope it's not too shameful. I'd appreciate any comments on the quality of the review as well. There are quick links in the description to most of the issues if you don't want to sit through the whole thing.

 
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Guys, here is a quick edit of the sm2 executable to call the Covert Missions 1.5 files. It is a stand alone executable named cm15.exe. Just drop the four re-named Covert Mission files in the Wing Commander gamedat folder and the cm15.exe file in the main WC folder.

EDIT: Please download again. I had the 'Artwork' artists names changed in the previous executable. This has only the Covert Mission filename calls changed. Also included a ReadMe text file.
 

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WingOver said:
Guys, here is a quick edit of the sm2 executable to call the Covert Missions 1.5 files. It is a stand alone executable named cm15.exe. Just drop the four re-named Covert Mission files in the Wing Commander gamedat folder and the cm15.exe file in the main WC folder.
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Thanks a lot.
So, how should the files be named (just to be absolutely clear)?

For documentary purposes, what did you change in the exe and how did you do it?
A little story about your mod would probably be a great read!
 
Thanks for your comments, delMar.

The Covert Mission files have been renamed by me to follow the original WC naming convention. ie. WC file extensions are .000; Secret Mission 1 files are .001; and Secret Mission 2 files are .002. So, for Covert Missions (SM1.5) I set the file extensions to .015.

briefing.sm15 ~~~> briefing.015
camp.sm15 ~~~~> camp.015
module.sm15 ~~~> module.015
title1.sm15 ~~~~~> titl15.vga

Then, within the Secret Missions 2 executable file (sm2.exe) I used a hex editing program to change the .002 extensions for the three files to .015 and the title screen file name from title1.vga to titl15.vga. I saved my changes to a new file named cm15.exe.

Using this method you can place the new Covert Mission files in the gamedat folder along with the Secret Missions 2 files. Starting the game with cm15.exe brings you to the Covert Missions title screen and off you go from there. :)

Please download the archive from my previous post again. I had forgotten that I had changed the artist's names... now only the Covert Missions changes are incorporated. Thanks!
 
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Iceblade, this is an addition to WC and the Secret Missions 1 & 2 add-ons. It is a work-in-progress. Please see full details in post #1. Thank you.
 
WingOver said:
Iceblade, this is an addition to WC and the Secret Missions 1 & 2 add-ons. It is a work-in-progress. Please see full details in post #1. Thank you.
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I think the question was whether it featured the game tweaks in SM2, such as Dralthis flying with mass drivers instead of lasers. Based on how the first cut modified SM2, I would guess the answer is yes.
 
WC1 models. It's not SWC running in DOS, it's the SM1.5 missions and stories running in the WC1/SM2 game engine.
 
delMar said:
@WingOver do you think you can patch SM2's wcdx exe file accordingly as well?
Btw, I'd love to have Mary Bellis mentioned in the credits.
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delMar, you mean that for my modded cm15.exe you would like Mary Bellis included in the Artwork credits as I have done for wc.exe and sm2.exe?
Your first question I'm not sure that I understand, as I do not know about a wcdx.exe file for the Secret Missions 2 add-on. Would you explain a little further, please. :)
 
Sorry for not being clear enough.

WingOver said:
delMar, you mean that for my modded cm15.exe you would like Mary Bellis included in the Artwork credits as I have done for wc.exe and sm2.exe?
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Yes, please.

WingOver said:
Your first question I'm not sure that I understand, as I do not know about a wcdx.exe file for the Secret Missions 2 add-on. Would you explain a little further, please.
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Stinger improved the Kilrathi Saga executables for WingCommander. Here's the according thread (including downloads): https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/introducing-wcdx-kilrathi-saga-for-modern-windows.27685/
It's the best way to play WC natively in Windows.

I intend to update the 1.5 package with your executables to get rid of renaming the resource files and I'd love to put in a DOS and a Windows executable.

Thanks!
 
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delMar... no problem. Here's my cm15.exe for the Covert Missions with M. Bellis included in the Artwork section of the credits.

As for the changes that you'd like for the Kilrathi Saga, I do not have that installed, but please send me either the executable that starts Secret Missions 2 (so that I can change it to call CM1.5) or the "dll file" that does this. I have looked at the wcdx.dll file and it DOES NOT call the briefing, camp, module or title files. Also, to be clear, you would like the same naming of the 1.5 files like I've done previously for the DOS version? Thanks for clearing this up. I will certainly hex-edit the executable for you. :)
 

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