Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

While flipping through the October 1994 issue of British gaming magazine PC Zone, noted retro gamer

Pix

spotted a vintage

Armada review

. The reviewer praises the graphics (a low resolution preview of the still upcoming Wing Commander 3) and was especially impressed with the hybrid turn-based/split-screen multiplayer feature, in which two players can go head-to-head on a single computer. The user friendliness of the menu system for setting up modem or netBIOS sessions also received a nod of approval. The five page spread contains ample screenshots of

Armada

's different game modes, although some space is reserved for a large inset preview of Wing Commander 3. Shortly after the game's release, the free

Proving Grounds

expansion would add support for IPX networking and six player sessions. A decade later, a

fan patch

by

HCl

enabled internet play. Scans below courtesy of

Pix's Origin Adventures

!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We're down to the final hours for Mike Winterbauer's Wing Commander art

portfolio

! The project has topped $3000 and dozens of dedicated contributors to the campaign will get an array of different art products based on the famous painting Mr. Winterbauer made for the SNES WC cover. The process he used to create the piece will also be catalogued in the associated art book. If you want to get in on the action, now's the final day to

pledge here

.

Thank you everybody for making this campaign an awesome success! 26 hours left and we are over 600% funded.

Wing Commander Fans are the best! Thank you!!

I look forward to getting all the awesome rewards out very soon!

Sincerely,

Mike

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UnnamedCharacter

has discovered another nifty developer trick in the code of Wing Commander. By observing what gets loaded into active memory while playing the game, he noticed how certain palette colors become blanked out and then revert back to magenta/red as the ship takes damage. This is how parts of the cockpit flicker when taking damage! Here he is to walked through the details:

Shades of Magenta

The following images are two different representation of the game palette. The first image represents the colors as extracted from the GAME.PAL file and the second represents the colors as extracted from game memory. Notice how several of the magenta colors have been blacked out when loaded into memory.

At first I found that curious: Does the game not use those colors? Often time magenta is used to indicate a transparent color, but several of them? Then I remembered what seemed like an oddity of the

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We're a little bit late to the party here, but

Jim Leonard

, one of the co-founders of MobyGames, recently posted a neat look back on twenty years of the useful game data website. As we've just recently celebrated our 21st, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy that simple old gaming sites like ours are still humming along after all this time. "Simple" is probably not a very fair label for such a vast and exhaustive resource, but they've managed to keep a lot of their classic charm intact to this date. I use it frequently to check up on classic developers and gaming credits, and thousands of other folks find it useful in other ways. Speaking of which, I should really go figure out how to get the voice actor credits separated off from

my profile

on the site. Yes, the Serious Sam special thanks is legit. Back on topic: the article is a really interesting history of how a classic gaming site came to be.

Quote from Freelancer News-Bot

Introducing the new engine that will future-proof Aftermath's economy.

Quote from Wing Commander News

This is a good one

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Clinical trials for new nanomedicines developed by Vitadyne Labs have delivered outstanding results.

Observers from the Interstellar Health Organisation summarised:

"Our teams carefully monitored the use of Vitadyne nanomeds on patients for whom conventional treatments were unsuitable. In all cases, the nanomedicines eliminated malignant cells, boosted immune systems and repaired damaged tissue."

"There is no doubt that this product represents a breakthrough in nanomedicine, with enormous healthcare potential."

Professor Katrien Rook, owner of Vitadyne Labs, told the media:

"It's highly gratifying to have our work validated in this way. I'm grateful to the IHO for its diligence, and I look forward to introducing our nanomedicines to the galaxy."

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Quote from Star Citizen News-Bot

Jump Point Now Available!

http://

Attention development subscribers: the February 2019 issue of Jump Point is now available in your subscription area. You’ll take a visit to Hurston, learn about the making of the Argo SRV and celebrate Stella Fortuna in an all-new Galactapedia. Plus an all-new lore feature covering the history of the Rust Society!

Interested in becoming a development subscriber? You can learn more here.

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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a neat touch that I only just noticed in Privateer. The 'look' of your radar changes slightly depending on the software manufacturer: Iris, Hunter and B and S.

Quote from Mass Effect News-Bot

One of the standout parts of The Game Awards 2020 was undeniably the release of the first trailer for the next Mass Effect game, which BioWare has been teasing on and off for quite some time now. While the new trailer seems to confirm the return of a fan-favorite character from the original trilogy, the recent departure of both Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah have fans understandably concerned about the future of both Mass Effect and Dragon Age. While it’s saddening to picture a Mass Effect team that doesn’t include either of those two BioWare vets, it’s recently been announced that some of the developers from the original Mass Effect Trilogy will be returning to work on the new game.

Project Director Mike Gamble recently took to Twitter to name drop some of the folks that will be working on the upcoming Mass Effect game. Gamble revealed that narrative designer Dusty Everman (ME – 3, Andromeda) and Parrish

Quote from Wing Commander News

Seven, seventeen, same thing...

Quote from Star Citizen News

Hello Citizens!

This Sunday, in the spirit of holiday fun, we invite you to take part in an old fashioned (but also thoroughly futuristic, in this case) Scavenger Hunt. Starting at 12am PDT on Sunday April 1st we’ll be tweeting out obscured images of a locations within the ‘Verse.

You, the players, must then track down the location, capture an image of your character standing in front of the hinted location, and reply to the twitter thread with your screenshot for that specific hinted image. The first person to successfully post an image of their character at the correct location wins that round.

We will tweet 8 images throughout the day, with the first at midnight (as we mentioned) and a new one going out every three hours, culminating in the final tweet at 9pm (all times PDT.)

That means 8 chances to win your very own Aegis Vulcan with LTI. Huzzah!

Make sure to carefully review the contest rules

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've very happy to announce that Wing Commander End Run is finally released! We've come a long way to reach this milestone as this completes the Baen set of Wing Commander novels - all are finally available to purchase digitally. The CIC has been lobbying the publisher for these for some fifteen years at conventions, on social media and through direct communications. We were extremely happy when it was announced in early 2016 that Freedom Flight was coming. Other books in the series followed, but not End Run. This was disappointing since End Run had a bit of a history as a slightly harder to find book in the later '90s. One even sold at auction for $85 during peak demand. So we got to the bottom of this and helped Baen realize their omission. It took a year for them to find a slot in their publishing schedule, but we're finally there! Pick it up at any of the major storefronts or direct

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

A goodwill initiative from the Achilles Corporation has now concluded.

Chairman Gus Weaver of the Sol division of Achilles Corp announced:

"Thanks to the dedication of many independent traders, we have now acquired enough commodities to manufacture replacements for all robots destroyed in the wake of the spy robot scandal."

"I'd also like to remind our customers that the illegal surveillance program was safely deleted by our latest coreware update. Remember, you can always trust Achilles."

The deliveries were organised by the Adenets Pro-Alliance Bond, which also arranged to protect traders from attack. Pilots who contributed to the initiative can now collect their rewards from Henslow Market in the Adenets system.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

President Gibson Kincaid has been accused of receiving illegal campaign funding via the Bank of Zaonce.

Councillor Elijah Beck presented evidence to a special session of the Alliance Assembly:

"During September 3304, President Kincaid's re-election campaign received several billion credits worth of undeclared funds. I have received data suggesting that these transactions were secretly arranged by a senior figure within the Bank of Zaonce."

"Regrettably I cannot reveal the source of this evidence since it constitutes part of an ongoing investigation. However, I call upon the Assembly to open an official inquiry to establish if there was any violation of campaign finance law."

Councillor Beck's proposal was approved by a majority vote, after which Prime Minister Edmund Mahon authorised the inquiry to begin immediately.

As yet there has been no comment from President Kincaid.

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Quote from Freelancer News-Bot

New demo-version with fully-voiced version of mission 4 and Adv Wide HUD 2.0.

Quote from Mass Effect News-Bot

While the series had been dormant for quite a few years, the Mass Effect series seems to be making a comeback in full force. Earlier this year, fans got to revisit the original trilogy through the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and a brand new game in the series looms large on the horizon as well. While Mass Effect has been around for a while, a newer outer space game has struck a remarkable chord the past year as well, with that being Innersloth’s Among Us. Now, a talented fan has found a way to bridge these two games with a new Mass Effect Among Us mod.

Talented modder Mentlegen3218 shared the new Mass Effect Among Us mod on their official Nexus Mods page. The mod works with all three games in the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, but is particularly intended for sequences in Mass Effect 3 where the Reapers appear and wreak havoc. However, instead of the Reapers, the machines’ massive forms are now

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's tons of great Wing Commander fan projects out there, but it's not every day that we get a teaser for a new one.

FekLeyrTarg

has had a hand in quite a few different endeavors over the years, and his latest will be a new short fan film. Projects like these have been proposed a number of times over the years, but we haven't seen very many come to fruition. They have a lot of potential to be pretty cool, and FekLeyr even made a graphic to announce his reveal this Monday, so we're pretty excited to see what's to come!

On June 18 2018, 8 PM Zulu, a new short Fan Film is going to be released.

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

The efforts of the Alliance have made a difference in the galaxy. The constant incursions by the Borg and others have been beaten back, thanks to a herculean effort of thousands of Starfleet, KDF, Romulan Republic and Jem’Hadar Captains working in concert. We can’t guarantee that these forces will never return, but all four quadrants are a little safer today. Excellent work, Captains. Starting this weekend, Red Alerts are moving from being always available to being special weekend events, with improved rewards! When these Red Alerts are live, you’ll be able to earn 35 Marks of your choice every time you play, with no cooldowns to prevent you from getting back into the action. These Task Force Operations will return to the galaxy regularly, as the groups of invaders do their best to take control of the four quadrants of the galaxy. This weekend, we’ll start with a social triple Red Alert

Quote from Star Citizen News-Bot

http://

Hello everyone,

Last weekend, we opened 3.4 on the PTU to all backers, which keeps us on track for delivery of 2018’s last content update. As the year comes to an end, it’s time to look back at what was achieved, from new shows like Calling all Devs, to improved FPS compliments of OCS, the implementation of mining, an already legendary CitizenCon and of course, Hurston. The year was chock full of new features, breakthroughs, and wonders, but now we look forward, to what 2019 will bring.

What was your favorite Star Citizen moment of 2018 and what are you looking forward to most in 2019? Let us know in the comments.

And with that, let’s see what’s going on this week:

Every week on Calling All Devs , designers, engineers, and other developers from our five offices around the world answer backer questions submitted on Spectrum and voted for by YOU. This week, we talk about GrimHEX hangars, the