Missile Identification Charts

Quick, what's that missile? I was studying Wing Commander Prophecy recently and realized I had never taken a good look at the alien missile graphics. Missiles are visible for perhaps a few frames at most so it's hard to get an idea of how they look in the game… but it turns out there was a lot of effort put into distinct missile textures, especially in Wing Commander Prophecy! Not only do the unusual alien weapons all have unique, organic graphics but almost every single Confederation missile and torpedo has a unique design. More, even, than were included in the high resolution renders in the manual and official guide!

From there I decided to look at the other games where I found lots of interesting missiles! I put together the following charts so that everyone can enjoy taking a longer look at the different objects than is usually possible. It also includes several cut weapons that you can't see in the game including Prophecy's leech missile, the null-g bomblets and the two torpedoes intended for use in Wing Commander Armada. Check back in the future, we are hoping to add the console ports (where different) to another iteration of these charts.

This effort also got me curious about the guns in Wing Commander Prophecy; by Wing Commander III, my brain starts blanking on what the different color bolts mean… so I made a quick and dirty chart to help! Then I checked Secret Ops, which adds a number of new guns and replaces the bolts for several of the alien guns.