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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!
Jun
…During Star Trek Online’s 2018 Summer Event you will be able to obtain Lohlunat Prize Vouchers (2018) by participating in the “Flying High” event on a daily basis. These Prize Vouchers can be earned once per day, and used to complete an Event Reputation project to obtain the Vorgon Ytijara Dreadnought Cruiser [T6]! This project requires 1000 Lohlunat Prize Vouchers (2018). Once this starship is obtained by any character on your account, any characters on this account can claim the Vorgon Ytijara Dreadnought Cruiser [T6] from the Account Claim tab within the Event Store (in the Event Reputation window). Vorgon Ytijara Dreadnought Cruiser [T6] The Ytijara Dreadnought Cruiser strikes a balance in the Vorgon fleets, balancing somewhere between the massive battle station of the Ryn'kodan and the sleek maneuverable strike ship of the Xyfius. Still robust and utilitarian, the Ytijara is intended
Sep
…We called for new Foundry stories, and the community responded in force. Now, it’s time for you to decide the winner. Head to this thread on the forums for all of the details on how to register your vote, and make sure you head into game and search for the following games to play them, and vote on your favorites! We can’t wait to see who the winner is. Missions for the Federation and Their Allies: “Mysteries and Familiar Faces" by @zectosh "Flowers of War, Thorns of Peace" by @XR-377 “A Simple Tailor's Shop” by @beargoggles “[CRD] Old Soldiers” by @hippiejohn “Ooooo, Jem” by @Smokebailey “[CRD] A Dagger in the Dark” by @stcaptainquirky "Generation Armageddon" by @EnglishWerewolf "Echoes of the Iconians" by @trollerpilotxiv#9883 “The Grand Library” by @colonel68 “Unseen Enemies” by @bberge “Replay Morning” by @TedHembach “Chem Bajora” by @ajwoodley “Investigate the Fire caves” by
Apr
…For the past month, we’ve been inviting non-ship artists from the Star Trek Online team on to our weekly stream, Ten Forward Weekly, to try their hand at designing a Risian Science Ship. Mentored by a ship artist, each one created their own interpretation of what that ship might look like, with widely different results. Then, our concept artist, Hector Ortiz, turned each of those designs into a beautiful sketch. You can see all of this on our Youtube channel right now – it’s a fascinating look at the ship design process. Click here to watch the videos! But now that all four ships are designed, the power is in your hands. Below, you can vote for which of the four ships is your favorite. The winner, as chosen by our community, will be this year’s free ship in the Risian Lohlunat Festival! Look at all the images, then vote in the survey below - voting will be open until 4/30/20. Choose
Feb
L.I.F. has finished up the general hull of his TCS Victory model and it's now available to download and try out. Owners of From the Depths can grab the ship here. While the outside is basically finished, there are lots of internal improvements yet to come. L.I.F. projects that the "flight bay, hangar deck, living area, bar, flight control and bridge" will all be forthcoming in subsequent updates. We can't wait to see how that turns out!
The outer hull is finished! The first fittings were a pretty large generator and ion engines to keep the ship from falling down below, so if spawned in space, it should remain there.
Apr
…Hello everyone,
We were thrilled by the response to the announcement of Beyond and the news that the game will be coming to VR. Bringing a game like No Man’s Sky to VR is a colossal technical undertaking, requiring major improvements to and optimisation of our engine. Your enthusiasm and excitement means so much to us as push on with this difficult task, and we will share more as soon as we are able.
In the meantime, we have some news for players on PC. As part of our optimisation work, we have added Vulkan support to the game. We have been able to do this not only for Beyond, but for the current live version of the game. As such, we wanted to release this to you as soon as possible.
Final Vulkan support will bring many PC players an immediate performance improvement, but it also helps us increase our options as we continue to make significant engine changes. It is only one portion of a large body of work that will
Jan
Mac reports that his next WC video is going to take a bit more time, but as a consolation prize, you get a snazzy new wallpaper! It once again features Klavs' escort carrier floating serenely in in orbit. I like the shift in color balance with emphasis on the blue tones this time around.
The next Wing Commander is gonna take longer then I expected. But, whatever, here's another rendered image I did for it that I totally did not rip off from a movie in another Sci-fi franchise.
Sep
…The Federal Times has published evidence that trillionaire and presidential candidate Zachary Rackham was once the pirate lord 'Calico Zack'.
The newsfeed featured a detailed exposé by financial journalist Bryanna Blanco:
"The Wallglass Investigations Agency has confirmed my long-held suspicions about Zachary Rackham's past. With the timely assistance of independent pilots, we have unearthed a message archive concealed in the Zeta Trianguli Australis system."
"This was created as insurance by a pirate named Angelo Defries. Wallglass's analysis revealed that Defries learned of Zachary Rackham's alter-ego over sixteen years ago, and threatened to transmit evidence to several newsfeeds – including, ironically, us here at The Federal Times."
"While Defries seems to have disappeared around 3992 with his evidence withheld, conversations from that period were traced to the Wishbone Point facility.
Sep
…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
Feb
…*Pilots Federation ALERT*
This is an emergency bulletin to alert independent pilots that kidnappers are operating in the vicinity of the HR 6828 system.
The Pilots Federation has received reports of untrustworthy offers being made to Commanders who recently obtained their pilot's licence.
These involve the owners of Drake-class fleet carriers enticing a pilot to outfit their ship for mining operations, before docking with the larger vessel. It then makes a series of jumps, to a distant star system over 800 light years away, taking the docked ship with it.
The Commander is encouraged to work on mining hotspots in order to produce income for the fleet carrier. However, their own ship's limited jump range means they are effectively marooned, and reliant upon the fleet carrier to be returned to their starting system.
All pilots are therefore advised to beware of hails directing them to HR 6828 or
May
Scout recently found this spicy post on the Game Collecting Reddit. A user named charitysmyth1 had just acquired a copy of Wing Commander 2. Much to their surprise, it contained a collection of vintage early '90s adult media. These look like rather tame items all-in-all, but they might have been considered pretty racy before the internet age. Although not pictured, it sounds like the box did include the WC2 disks at least!
Scored some big box PC games over the weekend. What I found in Wing Commander II completely caught me off guard.
Nov
…The Washington Post (or more specifically, their Launcher video game section) has run an article about video game franchises they'd want raised from the dead. Wing Commander gets top billing as their first series on the list, which is always great to see! Since this is Halloween-themed, each game also gets a small piece of zombie artwork. In WC's case, there's a disembodied hand on a joystick with a familiar reticle superimposed on top. You can check out the full article here.
Wing CommanderWe all know Mark Hamill once saved the universe while waving a lightsaber in a galaxy far, far away. But did you know he also saved Earth by dropping a tectonic bomb on the war-hungry planet of Kilrah? Then he followed up those heroics by staving off a civil war through exposing the plans of a warmongering admiral played by Malcolm McDowell, whose character’s motivations preceded those of Call of Duty’s
Jan
The
Eternall Newbiehas made a quirky retrospective video about Wing Commander 1. The author goes through the game's setting and physical box contents and highlights what made it so great at the time. Aside from some wonky input controls issues, he says it still holds up pretty well!
Join me as I look back at the granddaddy of all space combat sims, the game that launched a genre, Wing Commander 1.
Oct
Bonkus_Maximus has been streaming lots of classic Wing Commander lately, and he managed to catch a relative rarity on tape. Like the Raptor, the Gratha can carry mines, but you don't see them very often. Even when they're deployed, they can be easy to miss in the midst of a furball. Bonkus caught this one while flying a Dralthi II and knew immediately what he saw. It might be the first one he's ever seen! Fortunately, it looks like he dodged it in order to live to tell the tale. Video of the encounter is below, and you can spot it circled in yellow to the right. You can find more of his videos on Twitch here.
Also, for those who hunt unicorns, here it is from last night... the Kilrathi mine drop!!
Nov
Last month we posted a video of an old Tandy playing Wing Commander, and it was surprisingly popular. I admit I was also captivated by it. There's just a magical feeling associated with those chunky beige boxes. Marco Plays DOS Games recently took a similar crack at it and got everything going on a trusty old 386 DX33. Compared to the last video, this one has a lot more narration and Marco also shows off the game's box contents. Plus, he's armed with a vintage CH flightstick and uses it to dutifully pilot his viewers on a trip down memory lane. It's fun watching him have fun! Give it a view below.
Nov
…The Valiant has conducted a very thorough interview with the WC4 Remastered developers. In a really congenial conversation, they start out meeting several members of the team. The discussion talks about what's available to see in the recently released demo, how things are going currently and what's in store for the future. Everything goes on for more than an hour, so it really provides a lot of wonderful insight into what things are like behind the scenes. It's also just kind of awesome to hear a group of people excitedly talking in great detail about Wing Commander. Check it out below! If you haven't gotten a chance to give the updated WC4 Fan Remake for a spin yet, grab the demo here (900 meg exe).
A few days after the release of their demo in August, we had a nice little chat with the team about the project and it's future.The project is a fan attempt to allow owners of Wing Commander IV: The
Oct
Plywood Fiend has wrapped up another complete stream of a Wing Commander game. This time he played through the popular Secret Ops mod Unknown Enemy. If you haven't watched his previous material, he's spiced up the footage a bit with his own brand of humor. Check out the full UE playlist here. Having also completed a successful run through the original Wing Commander last month, he's doubled back around now and is picking up some of the losing track systems. You can find those additions here.
Port Hedland and Hubble's Star are done. (Saved both Drayman (Draymen?)... eventually.) The missions themselves are nothing new to anyone here most likely, but the peculiar humour and freakish intros are, like this one:
Oct
…Blue Origin launched Star Trek actor William Shatner into space this morning. At 90 years old, he became the oldest person to cross the threshold into space. As science fiction turns further into reality each day, these types of events have become commonplace, but this clip will still be the best thing in space, sci-fi, Star Trek or Wing Commander news that you'll see all day. Just listen to the emotion and wonder that drips off every word he has to say. Like the other recent Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic launches, these are suborbital flights where the ship spends just a matter of minutes weightless and above the atmosphere. But to hear him tell it, even ten minutes in space sounds like a transformative life-changing event. I'm so glad he got the chance to experience it!
This was the voyage of the RSS First Step today. Its mission: encounter Earth from incredible views at apogee
Jan
I'm short on time today, so here's a couple of Wing Commander shorts for you! They caught my eye because the videos below depict an Xperia Play (originally conceived as the Sony Ericsson "PlayStation Phone") running SNES Wing Commander and The Secret Missions. At first I wondered if there was some kind of EA Replay situation at work, but downloadable versions of that game were limited to the European-exclusive Playstation Network Store circa 2009. It's appears that these are straight emulations, which wouldn't be much different since EA Replay includes the Super Nintendo console editions anyhow. It's always fun to see Wing Commander pop up on a new kind of screen!
Feb
Mac is back with his biggest, baddest and most epic Lore Video yet! In recent months he's covered several adjacent topics such as the Broadsword Bomber and TCS Johnny Greene, which have helped set the stage for the main event: Wing Commander End Run. If you've read the novel, you know the story. The video starts out as the mother of all book reports, but it's much more than that! Mac uses a variety of WC2 talking head models and backdrops to convey the character interaction. He's also built a huge library of animations to visualize the story's fleet actions and fighter combat. It's quite a tremendous package. Block out some time and watch below!
The Terran Confederation is losing the war against their long time enemies, the Kilrathi Empire. What follows becomes the tale of "The Little Escort Carrier that Could", aka The "End Run".
