10
Feb
Know your Condors! Red is the search & rescue version, yellow is the refueling ship and grey is the shuttle (which I think didn’t make it to the game).
News categories list
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27
Oct
Justice has kicked off a live-streaming playthrough of Wing Commander Standoff. Standoff is a spectacular fan mod based on the Secret Ops engine. It takes place during the events of the Fleet Action novel, which were exciting times ripe for further exploration. The game was largely released in the 2004-2009 timeframe across five main chapters. While it was one of the most popular mods at the time, there's probably a lot of people these days that either missed it or just weren't into fan games back then. The two videos below get about halfway through the story, which is pretty good progress. Now's your chance to get a taste of what you might have missed!
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23
Oct
Last week we got a great look at Mac's WC1/2 Rapiers and Excalibur, but that wasn't the end of the line for those beautiful ships. All three have now gotten new tech draft spec sheets. Mac's testing out how they look printed, and my guess is that the results will be fantastic! As an extra bonus, he's also provided the manufacturer logos as additional images.
I finally got around to finishing the other 2 Tech Drafts I wanted to do; The Rapier-G and the Excalibur. Their sized for 11x17/12x18 but I'm going to see how they look as 8x10 prints before I go big.
Models & their textures, as always, by Hangar_B
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21
Oct
…*Pilots Federation ALERT*
Senator Zemina Torval's new corporation requires deliveries of commodities to its megaship in the EGM 559 system.
Constantia Torval, the senator's daughter and operations director of the company, provided details of the initiative:
"Now that we are a fully independent business, additional resources are urgently needed to continue providing services to the Empire. My goal is to ensure that the Torval name remains synonymous with efficiency and dedication."
"Shipments of geological equipment, microbial furnaces and mineral extractors can be delivered to the megaship Pride of Bitterwood in the EGM 559 system. From there, they will be transferred to our headquarters at Torval Orbital in LTT 198."
The Pride of Bitterwood is part of a corporate fleet recently purchased by Torval Mining Ltd. Most are currently in the LTT 198 system being outfitted for mining and transport -
12
Jul
…Many of the actors from the Wing Commander series have retired from acting or are otherwise engaged in different types of projects these days, but one person who's continued to see a fair bit of movie success is Josh Lucas. He's had a varied mix of action, drama, romance and now thriller type roles over the past 10-15 years, so he's enjoyed a pretty typecast-free career. He's also the main star of The Forever Purge, the fifth movie in the Purge series, which was just released in theaters this month. It looks like the new movie came in third place with about $12 million last weekend, but that's not so bad considering fairly stiff competition posed by F9 and the new Boss Baby sequel - not to mention the shadow that the pandemic still casts over the industry. As part of the press tour, there are a handful of interviews catching up with Mr. Lucas, such as the GMA piece below. Wow, he's fifty now!
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23
Apr
…Chronocidal Guy's recent 3D printed Excalibur model was a big hit, and fans wanted to get a closer look at the actual model renders to appreciate the design in all its beauty. They look wonderful, and Mr. Guy has provided a variety of angles to give everyone a great view. He has a few additional notes about areas that he had to tweak for producibility, but the fighter still looks pretty spot on!
The 3D model is currently a mess of assembly structures and supports, but drawings I can absolutely do.
Fully orthogonal, instead of those odd perspective renders we've had for so long.The second side view has the near tail and missile bay moved and flipped around to show their backsides, and give a clear view of the rest of the ship behind them, with the back engine bank moved down to show the inner surface. No markings yet, and I don't have the details built for the darker access panel areas, but those
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07
May
…
Here's a nifty demo disc from LOAF's vast collection. It's similar to the Origin CD Shortplays sampler that includes Wing Commander 4 and Crusader: No Remorse plus Cybermage and BioForge. The latter two are missing here, but Wing Commander takes up an even bigger proportion of the disc art. The Wing Commander 4 demo was absolutely enormous for the time, so miscellaneous preview discs like this were one of the main vectors for people to try it out. A lot of Wingnuts obviously own the main game and didn't feel the need to hunt down the demo, but there is a really cool unique mission included. It even lets you pick up a stormfire gun in space! Fortunately you don't need to hunt down your own copy - download links to each of the three different variants are included below.Several versions of the Wing Commander IV Demo exist. The first included a cinematic trailer and was released on magazine cover
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29
Apr
EmuMusicFan recently added a Japanese copy of Wing Commander 3 for the Playstation to his collection. This version has some absolutely gorgeous documentation that I don't think we've posted before, so here's the Combat Guide instruction manual in its entirety! It's in full color, which is really sweet. I always always like to see what bits of the game and interface remain in English after the rest is translated. It's very cool all around!
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04
Apr
The Spring Sale may be over, but GOG is rolling right into a handful of smaller specialty sales to help give gamers who are sheltering at home something to do. A particularly fun deal running right now is dedicated to space games of all types. This ranges from Space Quest to the X series (wow, they made an X4?) to Wing Commander. If you have a friend stuck at home right now, gift them a Wing Commander game and help them get through the quarantine! You can find the GOG midweek sale here.http://
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25
Dec
…Second Officer’s Log, Supplemental My third night shift with the conn has been rather sedate thus far. Several members of the command staff are enjoying some off-duty entertainment in Holodeck Two; I believe it has something to do with a peculiar form of Terran mythology from the 20th century known as “super heroics.” The captain seemed amused by my tactical suggestions for the event, particularly regarding the inefficiency of capes in close combat situations. “All decks have reported in,” Ensign Chen said from the Operations station. “We’re ready to begin the system maintenance sweep at your command.” Second Officer Stoln nodded from the center chair while calling up a display to monitor the procedure. “Very well, Ensign. Begin the procedure, starting with deck 30.” The young Vulcan officer studied the holographic readout emitted from the command chair’s armrest and
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17
Dec
…Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi opens with Blair being reduced in rank and assigned to a backwater Star Base called Caernaven Station in the Gwynedd System. Ever wonder what the inspiration for the base itself was? Director Siobhan Beeman tweeted: "The Confed starbases in WC2 were inspired by two things: the Cylon basestars from the original BSG, and Starfleet Headquarters from the old "Starfleet Technical Manual" from Franz Joseph Designs." We thought it would be fun to look at both Wing Commander II's Star Base AND the history of the two classic science fiction designs that inspired it.
Star Base - Wing Commander
The Confederation Star Base is a massive space station outpost seen in a number of different places in and around the Enigma Sector. The base is 1,200 meters wide, masses 230,000 tonnes and carries four flak guns and a full complement of fighters. A script document reproduced in
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16
Oct
…L.I.F. continues to run troubleshooting interference on the Freelancer port and zap any glitches that pop up along the way. He's grabbed some additional screenshots here while going through the campaign, and they look great. The Excalibur and Bearcat are especially awesome. It's still pretty wild to see familiar WC craft parked on the flight deck with Freelancer characters walking around. If you have a copy of FL, download version 1.0 of the mod here (320 meg zip) or here and let everyone know what you think!
The Sabre is a pretty reliable fighter for you right now as you're waiting for Junko to find information on Sinclair. You need to find a Concordia-class carrier, they're sold onboard and will last you all the way till Kusari, where the first planet in which you land sells the Thunderbolt. Also, I'll set things up so that you can buy the Bearcat in your first visit to Rheinland. Then you'll
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19
Aug
Display More
Howard Day
took some time out of his busy post-
Rebel Galaxy Outlawlaunch schedule to release an update to the online
rolling demofor Wing Leader! Much like the actual
WC1 demo, this isn't a playable artifact, but it shows live assets interacting in the game engine. Even moreso than any trailer, this gives fans a first hand up-close look at what the game will actually be like live. The battle is pretty intense - all those Dralthis start to make me nervous, but fortunately they have both Firekkans and Confed opponents to contend with! Load up the rolling demo
here.
The live demo's been updated! Includes the intro, menu (static for now) and initial fighting in a Dralthi! as soon as you die, tho, it switches back to Hornet.
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06
Jun
It's been quite a while since we've reported on real life space news, so I'm happy to report that the gang in the CIC Discord was very excited to see the Boeing CST-100 Starliner successfully lift off this morning. It's only the third time in the past fifty years that a brand new crewed vessel has taken off from the US, so to say we don't see this every day is an understatement. The two NASA astronauts aboard plan to dock at the International Space Station tomorrow, where they will deliver a much needed urine pump. We're hoping for an uneventful mission and safe landing over the next couple weeks!
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01
Jun
When Maniac and Blair first arrive on the Tiger Claw they're wearing CSS Concordia patches on their peacoats. It's not really clear why unless the only other option was a Tiger Claw one.
He changes sweaters between acts, too! Or I guess maybe he just hot glues a different patch onto the same sweater.
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21
May
…We've got a new poll today, and the topic is the Wing Commander Collectible Trading Card Game. Our specific focus is on the Weapon Systems aspect of the game. Some people might have a black and white interpretation of ship specs based on what they're used to playing, but there's plenty of variability that happens in the universe. This can range from mention of an Epee with a torpedo in WC2, Rachel/Pliers offering to upgrade your loadout or straight arcade-style pickups that appear in several games such as Arena, Armada Proving Grounds and the WC4 demo.
The CCG allows players to enact their version of this by modifying the stats of particular flights with the upgrades below. To limit the poll options, we didn't include Kilrathi variants of most things except for the Skipper. It's functionally the same as the Tachyon Cannon in-game, but since the in-universe device is so different, that's on the list
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06
May
…The campaign to make a new Wing Commander album had a very good week! It added more than $1500 in pledges from a couple dozen new fans. With that being said, its current $18,500 tally does make it a challenge to hit the $22,000 mark to add in a live choir. As great as it would be to hit the $22K stretch target, composer George Oldziey says that if we end up falling a little bit short, he may be able to generate a little bit more live orchestral material with the funds. Either way, the money will be used to enhance the final product! The final few days of any crowdfunding effort can be unpredictable, so we'll keep our fingers crossed! You can secure your copy and help the project here!
Note that George's comment below is from a few days ago. The Kickstarter officially closes this coming Saturday. Now's the time to jump in if you haven't yet!
Greetings all! As a result of your amazing support
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02
May
There's a piece of IMDb trivia that claims the poster in Blair's quarters is Freddie Prinze Jr.'s future wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar. I hate to ruin a non-Star Wars-related Wing Commander factoid but...
... it's not true. It's one of several propaganda posters made for the Tiger Claw sets (note the Confed flag behind her) and like the ones in other quarters and the lounge the lady is a stock photo model from a collection licensed by the production.
I don't know who she is but as you can see I've found the source photo for the first time! Plus another one from the same shoot. Today she shows up frequently as the graphic for scammy social media accounts in search of wealthy American husbands.
I also found her on a Czech translation of a romance novel by... Jude DEVERAUX! Which is pretty on-the-nose, IYKYK.
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27
Apr
…CountvonSchnaps has a brand new Wing Commander sketch, and this one is a bomber! He's created a Longbow named "Sledge Hammer" for the war effort. It's a chunky beast with lots of gorgeous details to look over. There's also an extra turret up top to fend off the Kilrathi. It was just published to DeviantArt yesterday and already has 80 Favorites, which seems like a lot. It's really nice to see the Wing Commander love out there! You can find his previous destroyer and cruiser takes here.
As per the results of the previous poll a Wing Commander design was in order. As such I picked the Longbow torpedo bomber. I played Wing Commander a lot and I did like the designs of the fighter and other ships in there. Kilrathi ships felt really alien and the story in which you could interact also appealed to me.
I did make a few alteration as to its design. It now has a turret and 3, instead of a 2 man crew. A
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25
Mar
…Goge stopped by to share a very cool space sim tech demo that he's been working on lately. It's called Squadron: Mercenaries and he's got some very lofty goals in mind! The core portion starts as a traditional Wing Commander style sim, but there are larger secondary element planned as well. One really cool thing that jumped out at me is that it just runs in a browser window. You can visit the website here and be playing in a few seconds without installation. More info is on the page to get oriented. We hope to see some of his ambitious plans come together!
Squadron: Mercenaries
Squadron Mercenaries is a thrilling spacefaring epic that blends the adrenaline-pumping space flight combat simulation of Wing Commander with the intricate personnel and material management aspects of 'Mechwarrior Mercenaries.' In this immersive game, players will not only engage in intense dogfights and grand-scale space
