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Awesome! We don’t stop to appreciate that Wing Commander Prophecy somehow managed to out-map Ultima.

Honor_KA: To all my Wing Commander fans and to those playing Star Citizen. Look what I just found doing some summer cleaning.

Here’s a born digital version of you want to pour over all the references and in-jokes. They even named some systems after especially handsome and well-liked fans!

The map was developed by John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel. He was a designer on Prophecy and Secret Ops who was also, as you can tell, a huge cool nerd. In 1997, Origin put a beta version on the WCP site for fans to comment on… and of course I saved it!

It was also the basis for the map used in the Wing Commander movie intro. Longtime Star Citizen fans may remember that this used to hang behind Chris Roberts in videos! This particular version was nicely relit by Klavs:

Shocking but true: this was NOT the first time a Wing

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Federal Times has hired the Wallglass Investigations Agency to prove that presidential candidate Zachary Rackham was once a pirate lord.
Financial journalist Bryanna Blanco has long claimed that the business magnate obtained his initial fortune via piracy. Wallglass, an independent firm that is much respected in the intelligence community, is seeking evidence to validate this accusation.
Harlan Turk, Rackham's running mate in the election, has lobbied for Congress to halt the investigation. He asserted: "The Federal Times is breaching the impartiality rules of journalism, and violating the security measures afforded to all presidential candidates."
Political ICE-caster Sura Oyekan also voiced her objections: "This is an outrageous attack on the reputation of a respected public figure, a great man who has contributed so much to Federal commerce and culture."
There was a more speculative

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Starfield isn't even fully out yet, but those who purchase one of the premium editions have been able to play for the last few days. We've already seen lots of interest from Wing Commander fans, including the first designs inspired by Wing Commander ships!

One of the very first is a vessel based on the Banshee from Wing Commander 4, built by Chris Kabigting. You might recall that he was also one of the initial modders to create WC ships in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw among other projects. While these might not be pixel-perfect recreations of the originals, keep in mind that they are not conventional 3D models. This is what fans have been able to accomplish in just a day or two using the in-game ship customizer tools, which is amazing!

Here's another that is a great first attempt at a Kamrani corvette from LordTyrranus!

If you haven't kept up with the game otherwise, here's a trailer with what it looks like!

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I found something recently that I’ve been looking for many, many years: the CD of production music that was the source of the diegetic clip in the Wing Commander movie where Paladin is listening to opera! I haven’t found anyone else who collects production music, but my CD is part of a lot of like twenty others from the same series and I’m happy to pass those on to interested parties should they exist. You can read up on the extensive discography of Wing Commander here!

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If you caught last night's Voices of War stream, you saw how we discovered that the US and UK versions of Armada shipped with slightly different formats of the game's manual. The American edition has purple on the left and black on the right, and the British version is partially inverted with black and light purple on the left and darker purple on the right. The game's play guides are more similar to eachother with dimensions to match the slightly squatter European shape. I've added pictures of the exterior box as well (US, UK, CD-ROM Classics) for even more side-by-side goodness!

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TONIGHT! I’ll be streaming to talk all about Voices of War, one of the greatest game manuals ever written! 8 PM Eastern on YouTube. Here’s a PDF of the booklet if you want to study up!

Check back here closer to start time for the YouTube link!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
A campaign by a minor Imperial Family member to deliver precious materials to Laedla has concluded.
The shipments of gold, jadeite and platinum will be used to construct statues of Duval family members, to be erected in public spaces in planetary cities across the Empire.
The project is the brainchild of Archduke Otto Lombardo-Duval, who announced:
"I am deeply grateful to all the pilots who mined or transported the resources we required. Work has already begun to forge them into beautiful works of art, commemorating past Emperors and other noble holders of the Duval name."
"It is my honour to confirm the first two statues will be of Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval, located in the palace's central plaza on Capitol, and of Lady Florence Lavigny, placed within the main square of Topaz's capital city alongside the memorial sculpture of Emperor Hengist."
Laedla Empire

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

A private discussion among Aegis leadership regarding mass Thargoid abductions has been made public.
Recordings of Professor Alba Tesreau, Aden Tanner and Seo Jin-ae were sent to and published by all newsfeeds, including the Pilots' Federation. File data shows that their conversation took place shortly before Professor Tesreau's statement to the media on July 18th, in Alba Tesreau's office at Aegis headquarters in Duamta.
After a brief period of speculation, Seo Jin-ae herself confirmed that she released the logs. Seo indicated that rumours circulating on 'alternative ICE channels' of Aegis withholding information from the public were false, and that Tesreau intended to announce evidence of human abductions even before the Dedicant tragedy brought the news to prominence.
Ernesto Rios analysed the new information in an article for Vox Galactica:
"Leaks of classified information are nothing new,

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A real surprise today: Dennis Mull sent me an envelope of Smudo autographs! Smudo is a German hip hop artist who loved Wing Commander and so got to have a cameo in Prophecy! You can learn more about that here.

These images were part of a photo series that we've also cataloged here.

Now we are learning about the music of Smudo.

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I’m reading the investment column in Victory Streak and there’s two things I don’t understand. I can’t tell if they’re meaningless or if it’s because I have absolutely no familiarity with finance...

1. In the subhead “Platolum Alloys + Prussian Retailers = Practical Thinking?” what does ‘Prussian Retailers’ refer to?
2. The last line of the article: “remember oil and carpets, two industries that enjoyed temporary fortune, then plummeted.” This has the cadence of a joke or an idiom... but it’s inscrutable to me. Anyone know what it’s referencing?

In case you were wondering, Colonel Blair did invest in platolum and it went pretty well! From the Kilrathi Saga scrapbook:

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Thargoids have unexpectedly abandoned the region around Wregoe BU-Y b2-0, mere days after being discovered.
They were believed to be present due to an ancient site on the planet Wregoe BU-Y b2-0 1 c, which hosted a conflict between Guardian and Thargoid forces millions of years ago. Aegis has confirmed reports that all Thargoids have now disappeared from that area of space. Aden Tanner delivered a summary:
"Our pilots can no longer detect a single Thargoid ship anywhere in that region. In military terms, they have undertaken a full tactical withdrawal. It usually requires overwhelming firepower to drive out Thargoid forces, especially from multiple systems. In this case, there was no fleet action or anti-xeno operation sufficiently large to cause this response."
Dr Jeong-Hui Shin of the Holloway Bioscience Institute observed:
"This is atypical behaviour for the Thargoid species. Their

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

After learning about how Denis Loubet came up with Wing Commander's enduring radar display I've been looking into how the design developed over the series. I found a note in the WC2 manual I never picked up on: "In VGA graphics mode, the shade of the dot indicates its range."

I ran some tests and sure enough, it's true! Each dot has THREE shades reserved in the 256-color palette. Close is within 5,000 meters, medium is 5,000-25,000 and far is over 30,000! NEVER noticed in gameplay. So I made a chart:

Strange case I just remembered: Special Operations 1 has the Gettysburg escorted by Epees that show up as GREEN on your radar... for about a second and a half between cutscenes! What an odd addition that never shows up again.

I went on a little tangent experimenting with this. Trying to fly to the Gettysburg remotely to see them hits a bug, no ships spawn until you get to the exact nav point and suddenly

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Vox Galactica's Jade Sanderlyn reviews developments in the ongoing war against the Thargoids.
"There have been some impressive territorial gains against the Thargoids in recent weeks. The number of systems controlled by the Titans' invasion fleets has tumbled, allowing many millions of people to return to their homes. This is largely thanks to coordinated action by independent pilots and anti-xeno squadrons."
"However, I take no pleasure in reporting that the 'unsubstantiated rumours' I discussed last month are true. The Thargoids' increased interest in capturing escape pods has been verified, with the appearance of a new vessel designed for this very task. Scythe-class hunters are now launching attacks en masse, using a combination of unique hull-breaching munitions and recovery drones to abduct living people."
"It's believed that the Scythes were responsible for the disappearance of

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It may be the dog days of summer in the northern hemisphere and the throes of winter in the south, but GOG is ready to kick off fall today. The Autumn Sale runs from August 28 through September 11. We've noted a few quirks and omissions in the discount rate this year, and they've stepped it up a bit this time. Wing Commanders Prophecy and Privateer 2 are discounted by 70%, and Armada plus Academy are each 55% off. All other DOS/Windows Wing Commander games get the regular 75% markdown from the normal $5.99 price. Just for fun, I checked Strike Commander and it's on sale for 50% off!

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Is there a better aesthetic than ~1994 Origin CD-ROM design?

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Presidential candidate Zachary Rackham has denied allegations that he was a notorious pirate lord prior to becoming an entrepreneur.
Financial journalist Bryanna Blanco has long maintained that the business magnate gained his initial fortune by means of piracy. She recently announced that she was renewing efforts to prove his criminality, thereby invalidating him from holding the presidency under Federal electoral laws.
In an exclusive interview with Sol Today, Mr Rackham addressed the situation:
"I've always been highly amused by these stories, which make out that I was some kind of swashbuckling corsair in my youth. No doubt they've helped boost sales of The Federal Times."
"But in the Federation, we have laws to protect innocent people – just like me! – from libellous accusations. It's time for Ms Blanco to discard her poisonous obsession with me, or I'll be forced to defend my good

Did you miss Thursday’s stream? Not to worry! We’ve got you covered!

Alicja Kozera and Amelia Kołat, our Senior Community Managers, together with Kacper Niepokólczycki, Lead Environment Artist, and Gabriel Amatangelo, Game Director, showcased Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom_ Liberty. Here’s a brief summary of what transpired:

Perk overhaul

Come September, we’ll see a total overhaul of perks in Cyberpunk 2077. Skill trees have been rearranged and you’ll need to redistribute points anew. Your perk points will be reset by default, but in addition to that all players will now be able to do a single attribute reset too (yes, all players, including new playthroughs)!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The TCS Victory has so many amazing locations. The jump to SVGA 'photorealistic' backgrounds is still seared in my mind. It's so hard to pick a favorite, but the bridge might be it. I love the bar, I love gunnery control, and the briefing room is freakin cool, but all of the little consoles and expansive window with your escort out front really take the cake. Scribbler has created one more ASMR/ambiance video so you can enjoy it for a solid hour in the background.

Today we return to the TCS Victory. She can already look back on a long service. As long as some work shifts in space. No missions and no attacks? It can also be quiet in space but be careful, everything can change quickly. So stay alert and keep an eye on your monitors. The bridge is the heart of every ship

For ASMR, radio plays or to relax

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Did you know that Privateer 2 has two very different sets of manuals? The game had an internally tempestuous release and one side effect of that was that Origin's creative services group completely reworked all of the packaging for the US release.

I thought it would be fun to look at the changes in the introductory letter. And right off the bat you can see it's a lot more than removing the "u"s from the "colours". They even change the name of the writer... flirty Jessica Montpellier becomes straight-laced Ian Esperanto!

Anyway I did a quick diff on the text and here are the results. And my question for readers is: did any of these changes make things better? It sure feels like a lot of change for the sake of change!

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Weird choice for a publication to rank games on a scale of 1 to 57, but it takes all sorts!

Team Nerd: Bill Walsh College Football (Mega Drive) / Wing Commander Secret Missions (Super Nintendo) - reviews from Computer And Video Games Issue 144 - November 1993. #RETROGAMING