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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Alliance and Sirius Corporation have negotiated a three-month probationary period for its proposed anti-xeno defence agreement.
In response to a summons by Councillor Nakato Kaine, CEO Li Yong-Rui appeared in person before the Assembly. As part of a longer speech he stated:
"I fully understand that, in order to be effective, the strategic defence pact requires broader political support. But to share its details before the Alliance can experience its benefits may lead to hasty decisions."
"Instead, we propose that Sirius Corporation is provided with an opportunity to demonstrate how we can enhance Allied security against the Thargoids. At the end of a contractually defined period of time, the Assembly can review the pact and decide whether or not to continue with our partnership."
Following further discussions, Yong-Rui accepted that the probationary period would be reduced to three months

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Christian Klein has posted some lovely pics of the new Spanish Wing Commander Academy that he's recently added to his collection. Aside from the obvious localization, the box also comes in a slightly different shape with different cropping. The local publisher DROSoft logo has been added to the front, but the back is especially interesting. More of the game's holo simulator room is visible - it's not just a case of them stretching the original back cover image. An additional horizontal span of greebles past the vertical frames on either side can be seen. It's very cool!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It’s been nearly a week since the demo for WC4 Remastered was released, and the game has been a big hit so far! Hundreds of fans have fired it up and the feedback is very positive. Players have been posting their recorded sessions online and word has spread to other news sites such as DSO and PC Gamer. If you haven’t yet tried it out, the WC4 Fan Remake team has posted helpful instructions on how to get things running. There’s even a tutorial on loading to a Steam Deck! Grab the main installer for yourself right here (900 Meg exe).

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we have a couple of neat animation tests by AllTinker. He's exploring the potential use of voxel creations to help update some of the old school designs into 3D models. They take some work to do, but the results are fairly decent for an initial test. This would just be one potential aspect of what Tinker's Confederation project is attempting to do. You can read up on the effort here.

I mentioned a few posts back that I was looking at voxel conversion as a potential option for adding full 3D rotation to the original 2D sprites. My early tests are pretty positive; here's an early (pretty rough) test of the WC1 Dralthi, converted (manually) to voxels from the original sprites. Each one seems like it will take a fair chunk of work, but it seems far from a prohibitive amount... Some will certainly be more difficult than others though.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

How would you like some French retrospectives on the early Wing Commander games? Well, we're all gearing up to watch the surprise drop of tonight's Strange New Worlds episode (join us on Discord to talk about it!), so this is what today's news post will be. These are actually really good overviews though. They talk about the games at length, of course, but they also hop around and share what some of the magazines were saying, what the documentation was like and give you a more complete time capsule look. It looks like YouTube will do auto-translated captions as well, so anyone can enjoy. Thanks to Greg14 for sharing. Have fun!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

LeHah is back with yet another fantastic Wing Commander collectible! Already the proud owner of such artifacts as a signed movie soundtrack and double-signed movie poster, he's set a new standard for impressive Wing Commander autographs. Here is his Wing Commander 3 poster with (clockwise from top right) Tom Wilson, François Chau, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies and Mark Hamill all-in-one. Rhys-Davies was his latest addition, and the actor even added "Paladin" to it unprompted. LeHah has been hitting up various conventions and sending away merchandise for years, but it's getting increasingly nerve-wracking to make progress with this one. While the various autographs have cost some $600 in direct money to obtain, the associated time and effort makes it increasingly priceless. I don't know if I'd be able to put this one in the mail and hope for it to return with a sixth signature!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Welcome to another Wing Commander edit. This scene never really worked for me in the theatrical cut. It feels like it's missing something, and while I'm no pro editor I do feel like it's missing a bit of connection. They tried to play up him being awkward and I'm not sure they ever quite get to him sounding sincere. More than that, this scene really should be motivating Blair to actually figure out what Pilgrims (and therefore his heritage) is all about. I haven't changed the scene drastically from the theatrical cut, but it has two minor additions. I've taken the opportunity to have a little fun with the edit and incorporate some alternate takes of some parts that help give the scene a different feel.

For the changes, I feel that Maniac directly referencing the Pilgrim's place in history is relevant. I think it's a nice addition. The problem with the way the movie is shot though is that some of

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

I got curious about one of the transports from Secret Ops; turns out "Kyoto Rose" is a kind of tea! So we ordered some from Amazon to try. And it was just fine! Make your own fun!!!

You can also listen to all of the Kyoto Rose's comm transmissions in the WCPedia Holovids section here!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here are all the new components added to Righteous Fire. The 'booster' style upgrades don't have damage states, so they are either doubled up or they have weird little placeholder graphics! That little frowny face has been hiding for 30 years...

Here's the same sprite sheet but for Privateer, in case you want to scroll through all the damaged components you might never have seen!

The Wing Commander damage states are very cool! Here's an article from earlier this year about Privateer's cockpit damage - plus a comprehensive gallery of all WC4's flight deck damage views!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we have a jazzed up version of the Armada intro from Retrobear Diskette Quest. There's a little bit of DOSBox scaling happening that supposedly makes it look better at higher resolutions, but the visuals aren't the draw here. It also has some "Roland MT-32 emulation" turned on, and I do hear the extra notes associated with that! Armada is a wonderful game that doesn't get as much time in the spotlight as it deserves, so take this as a plug to fire the game up this weekend!

How do you think the video above compares to the version that FekLeyrTarg rebuilt from scratch with Origin model assets? They both have their particular charms!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

What happens when you dig really deep for Wing Commander stuff to share? You find some wild gems like these! Turn the clock back 20+ years for a time capsule of WC fan art that raeder made back in the 2003-2005 era. Apparently these were created in an old school program called Bryce. I would say the Galaxy model is actually very good for the time and it's mostly the textures that would benefit from a little more consistency. Of course, the background art and flame effects are pretty dated, but they still have a certain vintage charm!

Over a decade has passed since these ships first ran the starlanes of the Gemini Sector, and the improvements just keep coming. New B&S scanners, cannon and turret mounts, improvements in storage capacity, heavier generator mounts, and room for improved counter-tronic equipment has fast made them popular among the freighting community. While they will never be a true

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Maintaining different color schemes for our discussion boards used to involve styling dozens of tiny images for the various buttons and labels, so at some point we picked one scheme that matched our homepage reasonably well and stuck with it. Fortunately, XenForo's user interface components are entirely CSS based, allowing a return to user-selectable color schemes! All we have to provide is a matching CIC logo. Look below for our hi-res logo in the various CIC colors that you are familiar with -- and perhaps a few others! You can find the style selection button near the bottom of any Chat Zone page. These updated logos will also make an appearance in our classic Guides and Ships sections.

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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Wing Commander fans have made a wide range of truly amazing patches over the years, and one of the most technically impressive is the suite of upgrades that enables modern high quality graphics, multiplayer and enhanced DVD movies in Wing Commander Prophecy. This is mostly accomplished by applying HCl's Enhancement Package as well as the OpenGL Patch by Pedro, PopsiclePete and team. However, time marches on, computer hardware gets better and operating systems change. This has increased the chance that some particular setup configurations aren't compatible with all of the aforementioned tweaks. Pedro is trying to gauge how many fellow Wingnuts are affected by this in order to help prioritize future work between upgrading these patches or working on his various fan projects. Answering the poll question below will provide valuable feedback - and feel free to follow up with more detail at the CIC

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

From now until 1/2/20 at 6PM CET, you'll be able to unlock bonus currency on the Arc platform for Perfect World titles! The bonus you can expect is listed in the chart below: This Charge Bonus is ONLY available for the following payment processors: Direct Credit Card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover) Paypal Skrill (Formerly Moneybookers) BoaCompra Xsolla Paysafecard Steam (Steam Purchases receive the bonus but do not receive extra ZEN for buying in bulk)

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

General: Resolved an issue that caused some Bridge Officers to be generated with an incomplete costume. Visiting the tailor should resolve affected Bridge Officers. Resolved an issue that was causing the, “Into the Breach” Welcome screen to be inaccessible when first logging in. Removed the disclaimer on the Cyborg Miracle Worker Bridge Officer that you cannot reclaim them for free after purchase. Made the Reman Liberated Borg Bridge Officers purchased from the Zen store tradable. Resolved an issue that would sometimes prevent the Plasma Plumes from being visible during the “Into the Breach” Task Force Operation. Systems: Resolved an issue that was causing certain choice-based rewards to lump items that should always be rewarded, in with the choices that players are asked to make. This change should revert all such behavior to how it is intended to work, and

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Five new patrols are coming to Star Trek Online, bringing new challenges and story to the universe. J’Ula, sister of T’Kuvma, is on the march once again. She is seeking the spores of prototaxites stellaviatori to fuel her devastating new superweapon. With the aid of Lt. Commander Paul Stamets and Captain Kuumaarke, captains can stand tall in the fight against the dangerous matriarch of House Mo’Kai. We’ll be revealing the new patrols one at a time in the lead up to Awakening – check back with Startrekonline.com for more! Ruins of Doom Investigate reports of House Mo'Kai activity in the Imaga System, believed to be a site where prototaxites stellaviatori grows. You will first be able to access these new Patrols from your mission journal after completing the episode “Beneath the Skin.” If you are on a Patrol mission from the journal, have completed it, or skipped it, you will then

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Nenid opened her eyes, only to see the worried face of Centurion D’mev staring down at her. “Status report,” she said hoarsely, having taken in a lungful of smoke during the last exchange of fire. Coughing, she got to her feet with the junior officer’s assistance and took a seat in the command chair. “Preferably before the Tholians manage to find and destroy us, if you please, Centurion. “ D’mev blanched before speaking. “Commander, we are under cloak, per your orders. A Tholian fleet is massing within the Azure Nebula; it seems we encountered their vanguard during our investigation of the temporal anomalies there.” Nenid nodded as she called up tactical data to the main viewscreen. And in a moment, a mission of science becomes a mission of war, she thought silently. “Engineering,” she said as she activated her command channel. “What’s our situation? That volley from the Tholians

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots Federation ALERT*
The Cornsar system has been attacked by Thargoid forces, causing severe damage to two starports.
Direct assaults against Chadwick Port and Ito Market stations have resulted in over ten thousand casualties. Local reports state that Thargoid vessels have also appeared elsewhere throughout the system, placing millions more lives at risk.
The anonymous figure known as Salvation recently warned that Cornsar was in imminent danger of being invaded, having been alerted by his new xeno-detection network. Aegis could not verify Salvation's claim and saw no evidence of any Thargoid presence.
The system's ruler, Marshal Noah Sharrow of the Allied Cornsar Constitution Party, transmitted this message:
"This is a call to any pilots in the vicinity of Cornsar. We urgently need ships to defend our people from the Thargoids, and to rescue civilians trapped within Chadwick Port and Ito

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last month we reported on the MK Podquest team's exploration of the Warrior King Saga. They spent the summer checking out the various chapters of the bizarre and epic four-part crossover that culminated in Michael Dorn portraying a space viking aboard the Tiger's Claw. Not everyone is into the podcast scene though and some people prefer these types of shows on YouTube. Your requests have been answered, and this episode is now online below. You can also find their commentary on the Warrior King's Street Fighter, Savage Dragon and Mortal Kombat episodes here.

We've reached the end of the Warrior King's journey this week with Wing Commander Academy Episode 8: Recreation, easily the best episode of the crossover hands down. Neal is now fully a Wing Commander guy. Also we messed around with a soundboard on this one so expect a ton of airhorns.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Some fifty Wingnuts have now pledged towards the Deluxe vinyl pressing of the WING COMMANDER score, and that's brought the total up past $5300. There's still a few weeks left to get in on this special collectible, but if you're planning to jump in, there's no time like the present! The album takes advantage of George Oldziey's Wing Commander 3/4/Prophecy music that was rerecorded by a live orchestra several years ago. You can watch a short documentary on the making of this great WC music below. And contribute to the crowdfunding campaign to make this new album happen here!

Supercade Press is offering three new editions of the soundtrack:

• Deluxe Edition Gatefold with 180g Starfield Splatter Vinyl
• Special Edition with 180g Marbled Bi-color Vinyl (new colors may be issued)
• Standard Edition with 180g Classic Black Vinyl