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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Professor Alba Tesreau, Professor Ishmael Palin and Ram Tah have released a joint statement regarding the alien sound heard at HIP 22460.
"There has been much speculation about the mysterious noise that was recorded following the Battle of HIP 22460, which is clearly of Thargoid origin. Thanks to the help of Seo Jin-ae, formerly known as Subject D-2, we have started to comprehend some of its meaning."
"What was audible to humans was only part of a complex multi-frequency transmission, amplified by the energy surging through the Thargoid surface site which housed the Proteus Wave weapon. Its specifics remain indecipherable for the moment, but certain aspects were isolated with the aid of Ms Seo, whose unique neural implants were designed to interface with Thargoid technology."
"She believes there is a 'call and response' element, as if the signal was a reply to the Thargoid forces in HIP

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Privateer 2's spaceflight has an interesting design where each ship model has just one set of textures... but they are designed to change their appearance based on which of ten or so palettes are selected.

The odd thing is that it's barely used! Each faction has a distinct livery that it uses this to display... but the game itself never actually changes them so you end up only ever seeing each ship with just one look.

I'm not sure why it works this way at all, but it sure is cool to go back and see familiar ships in other colors!

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

The Infinity Lock Box, containing prizes from nearly all previously-retired Lock Boxes, will be available again for an appearance on PC During this time, enemies defeated on both Ground and Space maps will have a small chance of dropping one of these prize-filled packages. This run of the Infinity Lock Box will feature the addition of the Undine Cheirax Bio-Warship [T6], and the Borg Lockbox contents! Meanwhile, the Undine Kiwavi Bio-Cruiser [T6] will be joining the Lobi Store! Continue reading further on for the full details on these new offerings. Updated Prize Lists! Along with the undine ships and all of the prizes offered in previous appearances of the Infinity Lock Box, additional prizes originally seen in the Borg Lock Box have been added to the rewards! They now include all of the following: Liberated Borg Command Juggernaut [T6] Console - Universal – Retrofitted

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Reports from independent explorers indicate that an unusual visual phenomenon has appeared in deep space.
A distant point of light, described as a reddish-orange flare with faint radial patterns, has been observed close to the Barnard's Loop nebula. It is thought to have appeared only recently. Universal Cartographics has confirmed that the location of this 'flare' does not match any previously catalogued stellar body or star.
Early attempts to verify these reports have noted a strange response when the same region of space is observed through a full spectrum system scanner (FSS). No definitive target can be isolated, but claims of a faint background noise generated by FSS audio converters have been asserted.
Commander Eva Llewellyn, speaking to Vox Galactica, remarked:
"I'm used to the FSS making all sorts of strange noises, but listening to this thing – comet,

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

A thermonuclear weapon, launched over a thousand years ago during Earth's Third World War, has been discovered.

The intercontinental ballistic missile was found beneath the Pacific Ocean, during construction of new undersea habitation off the coast of California.

Lieutenant Commander Page Patterson, a munitions-disposal specialist for the Federal Navy, gave this statement:

"The missile was partially embedded in the ocean floor when aqua-engineering teams found it. Erosion of the casing makes identification difficult, but the design is consistent with strategic ordnance of the mid-21st century. Its thermonuclear warhead would have had an explosive yield of 45 megatons."

"Robotic avatar units have successfully disarmed the missile's uranium core, so the risk to local populations has been nullified. We are now treating the area for radiation leakage. The remains of the missile will be scrapped."

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AD found a neat new Lego creation over at Bricklink. It's a mini Banshee created by CBSNAKE. A lot of Lego miniatures make compromises and don't resemble their intended inspiration particularly well, but wow, this just nails it! All the key features are depicted, and the colors are even spot on. This would be a fun project to actually source the pieces and build!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Some cool bespoke menus from Wing Commander IV for the Macintosh.

I was surprised to realize tonight that the gauntlet demo for the Mac is actually different from the PC version... it's ALL Arrows!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We talk a lot about the Super Nintendo ports of Wing Commander here, because they were a major vector for many people to get hooked on the series in the early '90s. Despite that, there were a few major things that generally fly under the radar and haven't been widely seen. One such change is the intro to The Secret Missions. It features an entirely new cutscene talking about the march of the Kilrathi and the development of their new super weapon (which ends up being the graviton weapon employed by the Sivar dreadnought at Goddard). I love the WC1 intro below for its clippy music and downscaled graphics, but you have to check out the second clip with the new Secret Missions vid! You can find more classic game intros at Retro Opening Games. Nintendo World Report TV also recently put out an exhaustive overview of WC on Nintendo platforms, which you can find here!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots Federation ALERT*
The values of combat bonds and anti-xeno bonds have been increased, as factions focus on bolstering defences.
Financial instability and the current political tensions have led to factions upscaling their rewards for combat bonds, as well as bonds received for destroying Thargoid vessels.
These increases to anti-xeno and combat bonds will be in effect across Alliance, Federal, Imperial and independent space. They can be processed as usual at any starport offering the relevant services.
This follows a turbulent period in many marketplaces that has impacted commodity prices, as well as producing a boost to the value of bounty vouchers.
The changes were remarked upon by Professor Ophelia Kaufmann, head of economics at Orion Independent University:
"As anticipated, the ongoing volatility of financial markets has led to further widespread revaluation. With heightened

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a peek at an interesting prototype of the Wing Commander Universe Map included with Wing Commander Prophecy. We first caught a glimpse of this during our 2012

trip

to the University of Texas archive. While the

final map

detailed many sectors where most of the main events happened in the series, this appears to be a little snippet that just traces through the events of WCP. Due to the number of differences, it appears to predate even the

preview map

that was released online during development, which is pretty cool! Extra bonus: Pix, ace and LOAF posing Texas-style with George Oldziey's CD!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a peek at an interesting prototype of the Wing Commander Universe Map included with Wing Commander Prophecy. We first caught a glimpse of this during our 2012

trip

to the University of Texas archive. While the

final map

detailed many sectors where most of the main events happened in the series, this appears to be a little snippet that just traces through the events of WCP. Due to the number of differences, it appears to predate even the

preview map

that was released online during development, which is pretty cool! Extra bonus: Pix, ace and LOAF posing Texas-style with George Oldziey's CD!

Quote from Mass Effect News-Bot

Alongside the fantasy likes of Dragon Age, the Mass Effect trilogy is arguably the most popular BioWare has released, the fandom even having a dedicated day to express their love of the space opera RPG. Apparent by an array of intricate cosplay and endless fan art, the collective Mass Effect community is still going strong in the face of the series’ extended, but inevitably-ending hiatus. However, until those low-key plans come to fruition, fans have long-expressed hope of a proper Mass Effect trilogy remaster that might finally send the epic saga into the modern-day or even the next-generation of gaming.

While actual remasters still remain to be seen, it appears a team of modders has already beaten BioWare to the punch, designing fully-realized visual upgrades for the original three Mass Effect games. A duo of mods called ‘A Lot of Textures’ (ALOT) and ‘A Lot Of Videos’ (ALOV) each feature the

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 Wing Commander News-Bot

My brother recently sent me a pretty fascinating question: is there a Wing Commander TCTG card in Starship Troopers (1997). He included an image where you can see cards stick to the wall to the left of the viewscreen in the camp barracks.

It does, indeed, look very similar to a Wing Commander card! Compare it, for instance, to this Hellcat V. Did the art department maybe take one and replace the fighter with a Heinlein-era rocket?

That's not the craziest connection to make, either. Troopers' lead, Casper Van Dien, was in fact good friends with Wing Commander's Mark Hamill and his family. That's why he had a cameo in the Wing Commander IV intro! Confed Redshirt #3:

The timeline works out, too. The Wing Commander TCTG was developed by a company called Mag Force 7 and released in August 1995. It's based mostly on WC3. Meanwhile, Starship Troopers' principal shoot was over the summer in 1996.

But it's not a

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's an interesting one in need of a followup: a COMPUTE! article from December 1990 saying that Origin is working on a Wing Commander port for the CDTV. That's not on my Wing Commander 1946 list!

The CDTV was a very early multimedia-era console aimed at the same 'replacement for the VCR' dream later chased by the 3DO. I've never used one myself!

The CDTV's followup was the Amiga CD32, which DID have a Wing Commander port. But that wouldn't have been the same project, the later Amiga efforts were all licensed projects handled by Mindscape.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's very exciting news in the Crusader community today. Crusader was another Origin series that was played as a top down isometric shooter. There were only two main games released, but they've now found and archived a version that may have been a precursor to an unreleased sequel - or perhaps an unreleased console port! You can download a copy for yourself and stay up to date with all of the latest Crusader news at EchoSector.com.

Crusader 2 PSX Pre-Pre Alpha recovered and released

It’s a wonderful day for Crusader history, as I am proud to announce the recovery and preservation of a pre-pre-alpha build of Crusader 2 for the Sony Playstation. It has been uploaded online for all to enjoy.

Following the departure of Tony Zurovec from Origin Systems in late 1996, there was a bit of a scramble to keep Crusader going as both No Remorse and No Regret were financial successes for the company. You can

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Dennis Mull recently came across a wonderfully nondescript "3 Title Pack" by Philips. Wing Commander games were bundled into dozens of special sets over the years. Most were sci-fi themed, but a small handful were oddball collections like this. These were all certainly... Titles, I suppose. The other two items were "The Software Toolworks World Atlas" and "Time Table of History." WC was decidedly the winner here. Although I can clearly read the product label, this was arguably a 4 Title Pack as the third game was the combo disc with Wing Commander 1 and Ultima VI bundled together. It even came with Claw Marks and an Ultima map! Boy, that shipboard magazine got around!

Mail Day #1: Philips 3 Title Pack which was a bundle with a CD-ROM in the UK. It contains amongst other things Wing Commander from Chris Roberts and Ultima VI from Richard Garriott

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Three recently detected energy signatures have been confirmed to be of a similar nature.

The engineer Ram Tah made a statement to the media:

"As part of my research, I regularly review data from surveillance satellites and ships that have picked up atypical signals. Although most turn out to be of no consequence, on this occasion I have identified three energy signatures that I believe warrant further investigation."

"The signals originate from the NGC 2451A sector, the IC 2391 sector and the Synuefe EN-H region. I have no further data, and at this time the signatures' meaning remains a mystery."

"I encourage any independent pilots operating in these regions to investigate. I do of course apologise if this turns out to be a pointless exercise, but in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, even the smallest opportunity must be explored."

Quote from EVERSPACE News

We've just released a new update on Steam and GOG (Mac on GOG is slightly delayed, but will hit soon). Highlights include the 3rd player ship and an overhaul of the perk system. Have fun playing!

New Features

• Added new player ship: Colonial Gunship
  
• Added new enemy: Outlaw Drone Carrier
  
• Perks overhaul: Divided into pilot perks and individual ship perks
  
• Added new perks: Trading and Diplomacy
  
• Attacking G&B can result in them reporting your attack and them being hostile in the current and next location
  
• Added two new natural hazards
  
• Added new point of interest: Freighter Wreck
  
• Added more structures
  
• Added option to set a flag for equipment to ignore it when switching to next/previous equipment
  
• Added hall of fame that keeps track of your completed runs
  
• Added backer-written logbook entries
  
• Added new planet type
  

Tweaks

• Interceptor and Gunship now have armor which reduces hull damage by 10%

Quote from EVERSPACE News

We've just released a new update. Highlights include enhancements that can be equipped in the hangar, derelict colonial stations, ship color customization and alternative loadouts.

See the complete list of changes below. Please note that Drone Overrides won't work in this version.

Unfortunately we are unable to offer this update on Mac due to several severe issues that popped up after migrating to Unreal Engine version 4.14. We're still working on solutions, but chances are high that we will have to wait for a new Unreal Engine version before we can release the update.

New Features

• Added enhancements that can be equipped in the hangar
  
• Added new points of interest: Derelict Colonial stations
  
• Added player ship colors: Some are unlocked from the start, more can be collected during runs
  
• Added alternative ship loadouts
  
• Replaced voice actor for protagonist
  
• Added new consumable: Distress Beacon
  
• Added new