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With 2022 now firmly in the rear view mirror, our last task is to conduct the annual CIC Fan Project of the Year contest! I hesitate to frame it as a competition, since everyone who contributed to these efforts and more are really all working to improve the fan community together. Nevertheless, we like doing this to recognize a small handful of amazing endeavors that brightened the landscape over the past year. Read up on the nominees below, and then scroll down to vote!

• Challenge Coins - ZOmegaZ’s successful 2021 crowdfunding campaign resulted in these beautiful trinkets in 2022! He took fan feedback to balance the sizes of the ships in the design and the results turned out great.
• elend’s Physical Models - elend is a master craftsman and his recently completed Dralthi model is high professional grade art. It belongs in a museum!
• Emulation Technology - Whether getting DOS games to run on Linux, Mac WC

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Did you know Dekker’s assault shuttle has a name? It’s called Hermes in the game files but it’s never mentioned in on screen.

Here's an update created for WC4 Remastered:

This also happens with Prince Thrakhath’s fighter in Wing Commander II. It’s named Bloodfang but since you only ever encounter it flown by the Prince (an ace profile that supersedes the normal ship ID) you never see the name!

Another good one: the surplus Kilrathi ships in Righteous Fire display as unknowns but they are stored as SALTHI.IFF. And what do you know, that’s the Super Wing Commander Salthi model!

Huh, and two out of three of these had Ultima universe cameos too. Everyone knows the Bloodfang in the corn field but the Salthi also showed up attacking Trinsic in in an Ultima Online April Fools gag.

Ultima Forever had a Dralthi/Drakhri type ship crashed on an island but it was never accessible. They were kind enough to send us a

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Good Old Games' winter sale may have come to an end, but their winter classics sale is just beginning! Wing Commander is as classic as good old games can be, and they've been marked down 75% accordingly. That means the whole main DOS/Windows series clocks in at less than $12! Round out your collection with the links below!

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Some sad news, RIP. "Sim Wong Hoo, the founder, chairman and CEO of Creative Technology, died on Jan 4." Creative's technology is massively important to the history of the PC... and their output in the 1990s was incredible! Wing Commander and Creative had a long and fruitful relationship and I thought it might be good to have a discussion about it.

The 1989 DOS port of Chris Roberts' Times of Lore was the first Origin game to include Sound Blaster support. The two companies' first official partnership was a small one: in 1990, Creative began including a Wing Commander I promo shot on the original Sound Blaster packaging.

But in 1991, Wing Commander spoke! WC2's Summer CES captured the world's attention by using a newly-released Sound Blaster Pro to present a cutscene where the evil Kilrathi actually spoke (hastily voiced by game developers recording themselves)!

That September, the game included a fully

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we've got a couple of examples that show off Mac's latest work in progress. We see a gorgeous short animation of the Operation Back Lash fleet assembling, which hints at some of the epic scenes to come. There's also a preliminary shot of the Waterloo class cruiser, which is coming together beautifully. It's such a sharp design!

Many, Many, Many MANY genuine thanks to @Hangar_B for lending me their Concordia model. I had to texture her myself, and boy was *that* an insane sojourn of learning. But she's almost ready for the big leagues now.#wingcommander pic.twitter.com/8EC4ySh5Id

— Mac's Lore (@MacsLore) December 24, 2022

I also messed with texturing their Waterloo-Cruiser as I was learning how to texture. It's a lot simpler than I thought, once you learn how to work with Substance Painter. Having a bg in Photoshop helped too. This one is much further away from being finished, however.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The court martial verdict of Admiral Aden Tanner has been officially overturned by an executive order from President Zachary Hudson.
In November 3307, Tanner attempted to take control of Hind Mine starport while in command of the Musashi megaship. He claimed that databanks at the headquarters of Taurus Mining Ventures – as Azimuth Biotech was then known – contained evidence that Salvation's anti-xeno superweapons were designed to attract the Thargoids into populated systems before they were deployed.
A legal review last September, after the Proteus Wave was used to entice Thargoids to HIP 22460, substantiated Tanner's claims. His sentence was commuted to time served, but his dishonourable discharge was upheld. This granting of clemency by President Hudson quashes the convictions of mutiny and unlawful military action.
The Office of the Federal President published the following:
"Aden Tanner

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Here's something for the collectors out there. Scribbler ran across this listing for a Wing Commander Movie flight suit on eBay. These were relatively common in prop stores and auction sites in the early 2000s, but the supply has dried up in recent years. We've actually posted about this item before, but the price has come down about 25% since we reported on it a ways back. The current list price is 1500 Euros, which is pretty steep, but actually not that much more than typical prices were 20 years ago (!!) after you account for inflation. If this is on your WC collection bucket list, find out more info here.

Original Flight Suit, production used from the movie Wing Commander (1999)

Good condition. Uniform a bit worn and darkened in some areas as requested for the production of the movie.

Size
Top. from armpit to armpit 58cm and a height of 44cm
Pants (overall) 1,50cm Height and 45cm of waist

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Nightball06 has a new set of Hellcat renders to share, and they've certainly come a very long way since his original 2D sketches. He tried commissioning another artist to take his designs to the next dimension, but now he's learned techniques to work with the model himself. There are a few liberties taken with specific elements, but the overarching space frame is pretty sharp. The textures are slick too. Now that this exist in virtual form, Nightball has plans to try his hand at animation next.

Thanks to the help from Mac, who gave me step-by-step instructions, I was finally able to render my "legacy"-images.

Looks pretty nice I think...So thanks again to all who helped me ... Next stop: Animation

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Azimuth Biotech has revealed prototypes of a module which improves hardpoint capacity for AX ships at the TZ Arietis Weapon Expo.
The event showcased a range of military products to entice governments, corporations and private groups into contracts with arms suppliers. But the current demand for anti-xeno weaponry meant that Azimuth Biotech's announcement gained the greatest media attention.
CEO Torben Rademaker delivered a presentation on the expo's main stage:
"Azimuth's experimental weapons stabiliser is designed to redistribute the physical stresses that experimental modules place upon a ship's structural integrity. Its unique technology will allow ships to utilise AX weapons above the current limit of four, expanding a pilots' options when engaging Thargoid vessels."
"The medium variant of our stabiliser allows one additional experimental weapon to be installed, while the large variant

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I bought a joystick! Normally if it ain’t Thrustmaster I ain’t going, but I think they’ll forgive me for straying in this case... Look at the insane choice of screenshots! One is a clip of the box of a different game! Wild!

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Bear with me here, this is one I did not expect. Here's a picture of former President Trump and his wife with his ambassador to the United Kingdom, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and his wife Suzanne...

... the press tells me that Mrs. Johnson is close friends with former First Lady Melania Trump. She's done a lot to use her position to support Ukraine this past year which is pretty neat...

... but in 1995 her maiden name was Suzanne Ircha... and she was an actress... who played Confed Redshirt #4 in Wing Commander IV! She's one of the young pilots in awe of Colonel Blair when he arrives on the Lexington! (Along with the always noticeable Casper Van Dien.)

She also had a similarly brief cameo in an episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9.

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We are cruising right through January, which means our annual Fan Project of the Year contest is moving quickly towards its conclusion. If you missed voting initially, you can still get your ballot in before the winners are called! Here are the nominees once again. Scroll down below to vote!

• Challenge Coins - ZOmegaZ’s successful 2021 crowdfunding campaign resulted in these beautiful trinkets in 2022! He took fan feedback to balance the sizes of the ships in the design and the results turned out great.
• elend’s Physical Models - elend is a master craftsman and his recently completed Dralthi model is high professional grade art. It belongs in a museum!
• Emulation Technology - Whether getting DOS games to run on Linux, Mac WC games running on PC or Xbox games going on PCs, this has been another great year of technological advancement in emulation.
• Gemini Sector RPG - One of the longest running and

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We are sad to report the passing of a veteran Wing Commander actor. Earl Boen, who voiced two characters in the first episode of Wing Commander Academy, passed away on January 3 at age 81 after a battle with lung cancer. Mr. Boen is best known for his appearances in the first three Terminator films as psychologist Dr. Silberman who continually finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time with regards to futuristic android appearances. Gamers know him best as the voice of Ghost Pirate LeChuck through most of the storied Monkey Island series (he had retired from acting just prior to development of the recent Return to Monkey Island). He was beloved throughout the entertainment industry, appearing in dozens and dozens of roles in every medium imaginable. You can read more about his career in this Variety article.

Mr. Boen guest starred in the first episode of Wing Commander Academy, "Red and Blue",

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Princess Aisling Duval has publicly asked Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval to reconsider pledging Imperial resources to a cross-superpower anti-xeno initiative.
Her message was shared on all Imperial newsfeeds:
"The Empire's capability to defend itself is not in question. But neither is there any doubt that we are facing a protracted war. The ferocity and scale of the Thargoid onslaught on human space is unprecedented. Of course the Empire will survive, as it has for over a millennium… but at what cost? How many systems must fall? How many citizens will grieve for lost loved ones?"
"Emperor Arissa, I implore you: work with the Alliance and Federation to reform Aegis. Our combined resources are needed to develop new technologies to overcome the alien armadas. Corporate interests must not dictate this path. Let Imperial ingenuity and courage light the way to victory over a common enemy."
A handful

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We've got good news for completionists today! From early 2016 through mid 2018, the full lineup of Baen Wing Commander novels was released in digital form. And nowadays you take it for granted that you can just carry all this amazing content around in your pocket wherever you go, but it was quite a saga to get there. The CIC team and many others lobbied Baen for 15+ years to get a digital release for the series. And this wasn't just for convenience - it also allowed for preservation and access as some of the novels started to get harder to find. Originally they actually skipped End Run, which was one of the books in highest demand, and it was the last to be released online.

We were also initially impressed that the novels were hitting all six major ebook retailers, except for one quirk! As the first release, somehow Freedom Flight was left out of the Google Play Ebook store. So whenever we list

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Klavs has a few new updates to his impressive Sabre design. The center aft fuselage has been streamlined with sleeker curves for a sharper look. The results speak for themselves! It's really nice to have a high quality model like this where even the turret guns and exquisitely modeled.

I purposefully made the turret smaller/remote operated, but it's still there. The Sabre just seems like such a hotrod to me, it's a waste to haul around all that badonkadonk. Second pilot operating the turret remotely makes more sense, or even the primary pilot while the secondary pilot handles the torpedo lock.

Still, it's big enough back there you could imagine a gunner being back there if you really wanted to!

For the 20th anniversary of Freelancer there are multiple activities and events planned between 24th February and 4th March.

Below you can find a short overview on planned livestreams done during that time.

For Crossfire we are going to have multiple server side events during the entire weekend 3rd March - 5th March and a "development meeting" in which future updates, planned changes, progress information and wishes can be discussed.

More information about all of this will be announced mid February.

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Outer Shell of the O'Neill Cylinder (Work in Progress)

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Yesterday was all about the Sabre, and today we've got a new wallpaper featuring the Broadsword. This one is Klavs' model once again, but it's been posed into an in-your-face perspective by Mac. This was actually made to complement the Broadsword lore video that he made for New Year's. You can imagine this might be the last thing a Ralatha sees before it goes boom!

Big Broadswords Bomb Battleships By Blackmane Base.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Azimuth Biotech has requested deliveries to LHS 1163 to manufacture a module that increases AX weapons capacity.
A press release from the corporation's PR division stated:
"Azimuth's dedication to defeating the Thargoids, which stretches back more than a century, has reached a new milestone with the development of our experimental weapon stabiliser."
"This proprietary invention redistributes the physical stresses that AX weapons place upon a ship's infrastructure. The class 3 and class 5 variants allow ships to be outfitted with one or two additional AX weapons respectively."
"Supplies of meta-alloys, insulating membranes, HN shock mounts and beryllium are required to begin mass production of our successful prototypes. All shipments should be delivered to the Glorious Prospect megaship in the LHS 1163 system. Sufficient resources will allow the class 3 variant of