Check Out Academy Gauntlet Opponents

A ton of people have fond memories of the Wing Commander Academy gauntlet, but very few ever made it all the way through Level 15 (Wave 3). Everyone else has been left to wonder just how many fighters the simulator throws at its best pilots. Thanks to HCl, this question has been answered! It was actually answered a dozen years ago when HCl built a small patch (22 k zip) that lets Wingnuts modify the enemies in each gauntlet wave. By looking at the default values, you can see just how tough it gets. We've now mirrored the patch here at the CIC, and the different wave values are listed below. In addition to HCl's patch, the game's built in cheat mode is triggered by starting the game with the command line "wca ESRT" or "wca ESRT -k" (with invincibility). Alt + Delete destroys your target.

Level 01, Wave 1 - 1 Sartha, skill 1 Level 01, Wave 2 - 1 Drakhri, skill 1 Level 01, Wave 3 - 1 Jrathek, skill 1 Level 02, Wave 1 - 2 Sartha, skill 1 Level 02, Wave 2 - 2 Drakhri, skill 1 Level 02, Wave 3 - 2 Jalkehi, skill 1 Level 03, Wave 1 - 2 Grikath, skill 1 Level 03, Wave 2 - 2 Strakha, skill 1 Level 03, Wave 3 - 3 Ferret, skill 1 Level 04, Wave 1 - 1 Wraith, skill 1 Level 04, Wave 2 - 2 Epee, skill 1 Level 04, Wave 3 - 3 Sabre, skill 1 Level 05, Wave 1 - 3 Epee, skill 1 Level 05, Wave 2 - 1 Sabre, skill 1 Level 05, Wave 3 - 3 Broadsword, skill 1 Level 06, Wave 1 - 1 Dorkathi, skill 1 Level 06, Wave 2 - 2 Crossbow, skill 1 Level 06, Wave 3 - 1 Morningstar, skill 1 Level 07, Wave 1 - 1 Wraith, skill 1 Level 07, Wave 2 - 2 Jrathek, skill 1 Level 07, Wave 3 - 3 Drakhri, skill 2 Level 08, Wave 1 - 3 Jalkehi, skill 2 Level 08, Wave 2 - 2 Morningstar, skill 2 Level 08, Wave 3 - 3 Sabre, skill 2 Level 09, Wave 1 - 4 Grikath, skill 3 Level 09, Wave 2 - 4 Strakha, skill 3 Level 09, Wave 3 - 3 Crossbow, skill 3 Level 10, Wave 1 - 4 Rapier, skill 2 Level 10, Wave 2 - 5 Epee, skill 2 Level 10, Wave 3 - 7 Ferret, skill 2 Level 11, Wave 1 - 5 Grikath, skill 3 Level 11, Wave 2 - 4 Wraith, skill 2 Level 11, Wave 3 - 4 Rapier, skill 3 Level 12, Wave 1 - 6 Jrathek, skill 2 Level 12, Wave 2 - 2 Dorkathi, skill 2 Level 12, Wave 3 - 9 Drakhri, skill 3 Level 13, Wave 1 - 5 Crossbow, skill 2 Level 13, Wave 2 - 4 Morningstar, skill 4 Level 13, Wave 3 - 6 Epee, skill 2 Level 14, Wave 1 - 6 Jrathek, skill 4 Level 14, Wave 2 - 7 Ferret, skill 4 Level 14, Wave 3 - 10 Sartha, skill 4 Level 15, Wave 1 - 7 Morningstar, skill 4 Level 15, Wave 2 - 8 Wraith, skill 3 Level 15, Wave 3 - 8 Jrathek, skill 4

Making the Game: Mission I5

Mission I5 is Wing Commander Prophecy's penultimate mission - the final attack on the Tiamat. I like the planned mission-specific dialogue included here -- that didn't make it into the game, did it? "Ahhhhrrr! I’m going down. I’ll ram her engines!" would have been great - especially if there were some way to choreograph it with what was going on outside your window.

These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!

Mission I5 Download (14 kb) Date: March 26, 1997 Project: Wing Commander Prophecy Donated By: John Guentzel Pages: 4