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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!

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Dave's garage has hosted an interview with Raymond Chen, one of the developers of Windows 95. He has a fun anecdote about Microsoft's mission to minimize compatibility issues with the operating system. When testing Wing Commander 3, they detected an error that would occur when pressing Control+C to cloak at the end of the game. The conflicting behavior highlighted some broken logic around accepting keystrokes, which spurred them to change how Copy/Paste was interpreted behind the scenes. It's a cool story! I'm not sure who managed to stumble across this scenario: WC3 DOS didn't really run in Windows - it was a classic "Reboot in MS-DOS Mode" game, but this could have come in handy by the time The Kilrathi Saga came around!

Microsoft developers once drove a truck to Egghead in order to buy ONE of EVERYTHING! Dave interviews Raymond Chen, Win95 developer, about the time they took a truck to EggHead

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Found a pretty neat Wing Commander IV preview from the November 1995 issue of PC Power. Lots of cool set photos and a great one of Mark Hamill as Colonel Blair...

... but even more fascinating, look at that gameplay shot on the last page! That's the earliest build of Wing Commander IV I've ever seen. What's going on with the radar?!

Apparently the September 1995 issue (21) has a Privateer 2 preview which I'd love to see! Anyone out there have back issues of PC Power? I believe it's from the UK.

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Simguru Pranav Antal has discussed Utopia's analysis of the designs for a Guardian-based device allegedly constructed by Salvation.
The schematics for the Nemesis Failsafe were unearthed by Seo Jin-ae, who believed that Salvation had developed a way to digitise and relocate his mind upon physical death. Following concerns that Utopia was involved, Aegis shared these designs with the commune to confirm that there was no connection with their Sim-Archive technology.
Pranav Antal recently sent a message to Aegis, which has been made public with Utopia's permission:
"After studying the designs intensively, our neurosmiths have gained some insights into the Nemesis Failsafe. Salvation's unique knowledge of Guardian energy particles and their applications exceeds even our understanding. But we have formulated a theory about what happened when the 'Nemesis protocol' was activated aboard the Bright

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Aligned Peoples’ Moray-class fighter, from the initial painting by Syd Mead to concept sketch with feedback from art director Mark Vearrier to Alias “cinematic” model to in-game asset!

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I've been waiting for this day: AD has discovered the first ever bootleg Wing Commander LEGO set on AliExpress!

Here's the original source - a fantastic design by Paul Magurean.

The F-107 Lance was developed in the immediate aftermath of the Terran-Kilrathi War by the Black Lance, an elite special forces organization created by Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn. It was designed as an all-purpose heavy fighter to be used exclusively by the Black Lance for its intended use in defending humanity in future conflicts. It was funded by the Black Lance's many elusive backers and like all Black Lance projects, was designed and tested in the utmost secrecy. Ultimately though, the Dragon was an illegally-produced spacecraft that had been fielded without the approval of the legitimate Confederation authorities.

The Dragon was a heavily-armed fighter with some of the most advanced equipment to emerge in the 2670s. It was

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This week I learned that there was a fully localized South Korean release of Wing Commander 3! Which means you’re all going to have the option to play WC3 in Korean soon. French, German and Japanese are well documented but this one stayed hidden until now. Here's a quick sample!

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We have an exciting new project to share today! AllTinker, the talented programmer and artist currently working on the Confederation project, has also been working on an intriguing tool that he's dubbed 'Originator'. The program seeks to dig into the guts of a wide range of Wing Commander and Origin games and extract art assets, sound files and videos. A program like this would make many of the CIC's internal projects much easier. It's also very valuable to modders, artists or just fans who are curious about what makes up the games. There's still a lot of debugging going on, but AllTinker has big plans for future enhancements to add in later. If you'd like to try out the first release and read more about the app, visit the CIC Forums!

Hey all, here's an offshoot project I've been working on for the past few months, which has turned into its own monster... It's still very early days, but perhaps

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*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Councillor Nakato Kaine has announced that a delivery campaign in the Tionisla system has not reached its target.
Addressing the Alliance Assembly, she said:
"The purpose of this campaign was to demonstrate the core principles of the Alliance: independence, self-sufficiency and mutual support. While we received millions of units, our target quota was not filled. I believe there are important lessons to be learned here. We must not lose faith in the Alliance's ability to remain self-sustaining in military infrastructure."
The strategic defence pact between the Alliance and Sirius Corporation is being subjected to an independent inquiry. A vocal minority of councillors in the Assembly are critical of their corporate partner's inability to deliver anti-xeno ships or activities.
Sirius Corporation CEO Li Yong Rui offered this comment to reporters:
"Sirius Corporation's

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Professor Palin's biological impurity has proved effective against the Thargoid spire sites, and is capable of halting their functionality.
Independent war reporter Gus LaChappelle published an on-the-scene report of the site in the Hyades Sector ST-Q B5-5 system for his ICE-cast channel Muzzle Flash:
"The eerie stillness surrounding me now is even more unnerving than when I visited this horror factory before. Bioluminescent nodules no longer pulse their sickly glow. Spires blot out the stars above, twisted towers made from solid night. Mega barnacles have ceased producing their foul byproducts. I'm walking through an alien cemetery."
"The soldiers escorting me constantly perform pirouettes with their weapons, trigger-twitchy. But there are no black-hulled monstrosities spitting fire from the shadows or wheeling across the sky. Only rotted mineral sacs drooping from mechanical vines, and

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Here's a great little time capsule from the fantastic X-Wing Game Series account. It shows a snapshot of the best selling PC games in early 1994. Due to print lead times, this would basically have depicted the holiday 1993 sales. Wing Commander Privateer and Academy are both included as they launched within a month of each other in September and August respectively. X-Wing and its Imperial Pursuit expansion are also up there. Plus, there's MS Flight Sim 5, the original Sim City, 7th Guest and more. What a time to be alive!

X-Wing, Imperial Pursuit together with Privateer and Wing Commander Academy (plus MS Flight Simulator 5.0) in the Top 10 best-selling PC games from February 1994 issue of the Electronic Entertainment mag.Great times for flight games!

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Super cool! Anatoly Shashkin recently posted this awesome September 1994 recruitment ad for Origin Systems. The background is the gunnery control virtual set built for Wing Commander by Mark Vearrier (who went on to art direct Prophecy!).

Want to watch it come together? Sketches and the initial wireframe:

Taking shape:

… and finally!

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Mods are asleep, post the Wing Commander III mini-shuttle.

It's one of the destructible cargo units that attach to the Confederation transport.

Attachments like these were pretty bugged and a bunch were cut from the game late. Here's the set that were intended to attach to the latticework on the Kilrathi freighter!

Unfortunately the bug persisted into Wing Commander IV and so the Confederation transports are all naked. Which is too bad given the number of convoy-related missions you fly! (And: the aforementioned Kilrathi transport.)

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Vice President Jerome Archer has discussed the recent Federal presidential election and other topics during an interview with The Federal Times.
On the victory of President-elect Felicia Winters:
"Winters fought a clean campaign based on issues, as I did, so one cannot fault her for that. But I think the harsh realities of governance will quickly overwhelm her liberal idealism. Hudson, whatever his critics may think of him, was never afraid to take decisive action. We'll see if Winters can do the same."
On Archer's electoral policies:
"I maintain that a security-first approach is the correct one, given the many threats facing the Federation. The Thargoids are not the only enemy of our people. Dismantling the Proactive Detection Bureau, as Winters has threatened to do, will be an act of self-sabotage for our entire society."
On his relationship with outgoing President Zachary Hudson:
"It's been

Some of new features coming with this update:

• metro
• new replayable car chases
• boss fights improved
• new vehicles avilable for purchase
• more secrets to be discovered
• gangs pursues
• and much more ...

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I'm calming the old broken brain this weekend with a little research project: studying the evolution of Claw Marks! Like all holy books, Claw Marks evolved over time with edits and changes made by other contributors as Wing Commander I was ported and re-released...

And it's pretty fascinating seeing the changes! The original manual was developed in 1990 by the late, great Aaron Allston before Origin adopted digital publishing. It's the perfect lore booklet, absolutely defining the tone of the original game.

In 1994, Origin recreated it digitally for the Sega CD port (and then Super Wing Commander). Tuesday Frase overhauled the text, with changes ranging from dropping Oxford commas to rewriting sections and adding others!

And then in 1996 it was updated again for Kilrathi Saga with a host of lesser changes (and a totally new layout). And of course there are spinoffs and foreign translations that add

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Woah, it's December! That means the year will be over in a blink, and we've got some annual CIC traditions to get to! In order to prepare, we're accepting nominations now for any Wing Commander fan projects that you'd like to recognize for their contributions in 2023. Email news@wcnews.com and let us know! There are some very strong contenders this year. Below is a rundown of our past winners:

2022	WC4 Remastered	Mac's Lore Videos / Gemini Sector RPG
2021	WC4 Remastered	AI Enhanced WC Videos / Wing Leader
2020	AI Enhanced WC Videos	WC4 Fan Remake / wcdx
2019	Prophecy & Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack	WC4 Fan Remake / Wing Leader
2018	Flat Universe	Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack / WC1 Sprite Refresh
2017	Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack	Homeworld Remastered / Flat Universe
2016	Flat Universe	Homeworld Remastered / Secret Ops MUP / Enhanced Soundtracks
2015	Homeworld Remastered Mod	Flat Universe / Secret Ops MUP / Klavs' Model

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The star system Hyades Sector FB-N B7-6, which contains Thargoid Titan Taranis, has been surrounded by human forces.
Aden Tanner, special advisor to Aegis, provided the following update:
"Our pilots appear to have pushed Thargoids out of all systems in Titan Taranis's area of control. It's taken a huge effort, one which should rightly be recognised as outstanding. We don't know for certain what will happen next. But for now, the region is back in humanity's control."
"I strongly urge pilots to keep fighting the Thargoid fleet wherever it is encountered. We must not become complacent - the Thargoids have surprised us before, and have demonstrated the ability to respond when defeat seems inevitable. Those who fought in the HIP 22460 campaign and witnessed the Proteus Wave event will testify to the dangers of assuming the war is won."
Systems in the immediate vicinity, such as Hupang, Swahku and

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Knight26-77 has posted a very cool video of his 3D printer manufacturing a slick Excalibur fighter. We've seen a lot of gorgeous plastic craft in recent years, but I don't think we've seen a perspective quite like this before. Definitely check it out!

Timelapse 3D print of the Excalibur Fighter from Wing Commander 3.Original design by Origin Systems. Redesign by Klavs and 3D printable model by Chronocidal Guy

Here's a fleet shot of some of his other craft all together:

I did a rough rip and transfer to stl off of his old model release and printed it on my old printer along with several other models. The scales might be slightly off in some cases. All should be 1:72.

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*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Councillor Nakato Kaine has requested deliveries to the Tionisla system in protest against the anti-xeno defence pact.
Pilots are asked to deliver shipments of hazardous environment suits, micro controllers and titanium to Brett High. The Alliance Rapid-reaction Corps, which is hosting the initiative, will protect participants by redeeming bounty vouchers for the destruction of any wanted ships.
The campaign was personally arranged by Councillor Nakato Kaine, the representative for Tionisla in the Alliance Assembly. Speaking to the Old Worlds Gazette, Kaine stated:
"I aim to prove that the Alliance's military fleet is not as dependent upon Sirius Corporation as many believe. This campaign demonstrates our capability to stockpile vital resources for the Alliance Defence Force. And we have plenty of researchers, mechanics and manufacturers ready to develop our own