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If you've been following some of our recent news posts, you've seen that LOAF has been making some incredible strides in finishing out the Privateer-related entries of the CIC wiki. Many of the recent discoveries and explorations have been crowdsourced in Discord #Wingnut, and new contributors are always welcome. Whether you'd just like to read up on the latest, or get a sense of what yet needs to be done, check out some of the major indices such as the main Privateer page, the components navbox and the ships/vehicles navbox. Did you know the shape of the radar changes by sensor type? The Maneuvering Jet art started out as an EMP Shield? The Paradigm Destroyer is internally coded as "Frigate"? And there are nine different color shades in the MFD damage display? All of this is just the beginning - learn more at the WCPedia!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Commanders have worked alongside Federal authorities to destroy criminal ships in the Gliese 868 system.
The pirate gang was responsible for multiple raids while Federal security services were distracted by public protests around the Hudson Contravention. To help protect shipping and eliminate the threat, bounties were placed on all criminal vessels.
Gliese 868 Services, which organised the counter-offensive against the pirates, announced:
"The combat expertise of Federal Navy auxiliaries and independent pilots has succeeded in driving back these ruthless criminals. We will be pleased to reimburse bounty vouchers at Bacon Port in Gliese 868."
The Federal Times reported on the political repercussions from these events:
"It is not just the security agencies that are embarrassed at relying on volunteers to protect trade in Gliese 868. Members of both the Republican and

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Looking Glass Museum has posted a brief but nifty thirty year old video. Before E3 was a thing, the Consumer Electronics Shows was one of the primary venues to showcase your big video game. This was recorded by someone at the Summer 1992 CES. It features some of the upcoming games for the Sega CD system on a cool nine-television video wall. We get lots of flickering WING COMMANDERS on screen interspersed with some nice Hornet on Dralthi action. What a show that must have been!

LOAF: Interesting video clip from CES in 1992 showing Sega’s Sega CD display look at! Obviously I want a nine TV bank that flashes WING COMMANDER but the unreleased Ultima Underworld port is probably more interesting!

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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Federal government has announced plans to extend Zachary Hudson's term as president beyond the legally allotted span.
Every Federation president serves a single term of eight years. President Hudson assumed the role in June 3301, and is therefore due to step down in June 3309 following an election to select his replacement.
Secretary of State Lana Berkovich delivered the proposal to Congress:
"We live in extraordinary times, and all signs point to further challenges in the coming years. Our people deserve a steady hand at the helm rather than being forced to change political course, especially with the tempestuous developments found within our neighbouring superpowers."
"It is therefore in the public interest that we temporarily suspend the arbitrary eight-year limitation, to allow President Hudson to continue steering the Federation through the coming storms."
Shadow President Felicia

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

If you're like me and Christmas came and went like a blur, Juris Perkons has a little treat to keep that holiday feeling going a little while longer. He's created a space sim called Rogue Xmas 3D. The program is just a tech demo to practice his coding skills, but it's surprisingly satisfying to watch snowmen and piles of packages explode under your laser cannons. Check out the video below and download it here.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I have a Christmas Present for You! Please, download, play, enjoy - ROGUE XMAS 3D

Do NOT take it too seriously, just have fun!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We recently came across a remastered take on Prince Thrakhath's Theme by TiMidity and posted by davvigtu. This is one of the most epic tracks in the whole franchise, so we're excited to share each new take on it. There are certain tones in this remaster that come across a bit more clearly and it has a nice solid timbre throughout. If you'd like to compare how this sounds versus the original, you can find a nice rip of the Origin Audio Volume I version here (second from the bottom).

And not at all meaning to detract from the version above, but this is also gives me an opportunity to once again share Jason Walton-Young's masterful version:

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It's a good week for Rapier I art. We posted an uncommon 3D render of a fan model a few days ago, and now we've got a top down line art sketch of the CF-117. The rotary neutron gun is a bit long, but the ship portions are pretty good overall. This type of drawing was really big in the late '90s, so I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this over the years. bagera3005 is certainly a fan of this art style with thousands of Star Trek ships and other similar designs in his gallery. He's also made a Kilrathi-inspired ship, pictured below. It's kind of a funky cross between a Goran and a Sorthak by my eye.

My version of Wing Commander Rapier from the movie

If you'd like to see more cool WC line art, be sure to check out our prior updates.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Ever wonder how medals work in Wing Commander I? Well, I am putting together a guide anyway.

It's not uncommon for discussions at the CIC Forums to touch on the concept of "medal points" and how this influences whether you are awarded a certain star or sometimes nothing at all. It often shows up in the news and on Discord too. Many fans have had a general understanding dating all the way back to Secrets of the Wing Commander Universe, but what exactly are the details? How many points do you get for taking out a Dralthi versus a Snakeir? Certain missions each make a single medal available, but we realized we didn't have a nice concise article that spelled out what that threshold was and how you achieved it. So LOAF finally went and did it! This then naturally led into topics like the hypothetical maximum medal slate that a pilot can earn based on their path through the game, which have been noted

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

With the launch of Awakening, captains will be introduced to a new type of Event which will leverage the Event UI overhaul previously spoken about in another dev blog. The Mycelial Crisis represents a centralized Event designed to celebrate the various pieces of new Content being released, and give players a new method of engaging with the evolving story of J’Ula, and her unscrupulous efforts to rekindle the dominance of the Klingon Empire in the 25th century. Participating in this Event will give all players the opportunity to win a Tier-6 Elachi Starship for their entire account! Keep reading for details on how you can participate, and what additional prizes may be earned. Your Progress Viewing the details of this Event in-game is as simple as opening your Journal and navigating to the new “Events” tab. From here, all of the pertinent information is at your fingertips, as are

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We're happy to kick off the new week with another exciting update from the WC4 Remastered team! They've posted a new article where they dig into the development of the game's third mission. It's the first time players get to experience a new fighter, so this includes deploying a second cockpit and implementing alternate HUD locations for certain items. There's also new information about the ability to play bespoke music at certain contextually relevant points during a mission. There's even a video about this in more depth! Check out the full article here.

Getting the new cockpit in wasn’t smooth sailing, though. The Hellcat cockpit was held together by a number of hacks from our first trailer. Now, everything is data-driven and reusable, with no hardcoding in sight, making future cockpits much easier to implement.

Each ship can now have its own custom HUD layout, necessitated by the different

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Little discovery: the firefighting truck seen fleetingly in the Wing Commander movie is a rented Saracen tank. Now I have an excuse to own a tank.

More of the truck from AD!

AD: Don't forget to ask for the spray foam kit when you order yours! Off-camera, this vehicle is shoring up the breached bulkhead. It was shot at least twice with multi-cam setups to only show us the tires.

And its cousin, the fuel truck:

AD: I think this also settles that they used the same truck as the fuel truck in the movie, but dressed it differently with extra panels, wheel covers, and more tanks. You can spot it very briefly and a handful of flight deck scenes. You get a decent look at the back of it in an unused angle of Maniac's reckless landing, which apparently almost crashed into the fuel truck.

Concept art from the movie's set folks! You can see it's supposed to be an unmanned repair truck that sprays self-sealing goo

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Pretty neat discovery by AD: the German dub of Wing Commander Prophecy includes two post-mission attaboys that aren’t present in the English release!

They are both included in the shooting script and the schedule! It’s not some giant missing piece but it’s pretty neat to see more of Ginger’s Rachel… even if she’s speaking German! Yes we are adding the entire German dub to Holovids! You can learn more here and here.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we've got an old recording of Mark Hamill being interviewed on the Craig Kilborn talk show to promote Wing Commander Prophecy. Wing Commander was a rare crossover hit in the mid '90s with promotion on television shows like this. The interviewers would typically not have any experience with the material, which contributes to how out of touch they seem. The humor is super cringe and Kilborn is obnoxious, but it's an interesting look at the time. I do appreciate that it would be lost if not for people like jahwilly transcribing their old VHS tapes!

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!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've moved into August, and now it's just two weeks until the CIC's 25th Birthday Party! You can join in and celebrate with everyone on Saturday, August 19. We'll be hosting a huge bash in Discord #Wingnut. Discord has rolled out quite a few new features over the last year, and we'll be trying some of them out with the large group. The main event gets going at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT). Hope to see you there!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This prompted me to dig up the original Tarsus model...

But what's that written on the rear!?! Zoom in and enhance... HIDDEN LORE!

Is this visible in the game itself? Not even a little.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Traces of a distress call from the Dedicant megaship have been detected in the LP 714-58 system.
Vice Admiral Amir Rafiq, a spokesperson for the Imperial Navy, broadcast an announcement on all public channels:
"An Imperial scout ship travelling through LP 714-58 has intercepted several fragmentary signals. Their identifying markers confirmed that they originated from the Dedicant. We believe there has been an encryption error in the system's communication beacons, which prevented the distress call from being rerouted to its intended destination in the Federation."
"Officially, the Imperial Navy no longer performs joint operations with our Federal counterparts. Nor do we involve ourselves in the activities of the illegal Far God cult. Nevertheless, we are sharing this information as a humanitarian gesture. Our hope is that this may aid a rescue mission for those

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's Mike Winterbauer's wonderful Wing Commander SNES painting as a pin-up in a French magazine called Super Power!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here are the amazing takeoff and landing sprites from the original Wing Commander. Along with the cockpits these were absolutely essential in establishing the player's ship in their head (and showing-not-telling damage after a mission!).

Here are the Wing Commander II versions:

This is an interesting comparison to the WC2 landing art, the similar (but decidedly different) side views used for the eject cutscenes. They didn't do these for the new ships in the mission disks!

And here's the kind of detail that makes a Chris Roberts game special: when the cockpit slides open you can see just a little strip of the tan cockpit... which matches the side view you have in flight!

You can download a reference pack with dozens of cockpit images from WC1, WC2, WC3, Academy, Armada and Privateer here!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today I'd like to share a few of EmuMusicFan's latest Kilrathi sketches. We've got several soccer themed pictures first. I can imagine that the inspiration for these began around the World Cup time, but I'll also point out that they arrived just in time for the new season of Ted Lasso. We also get a bonus Firekkan in the stands. There's a couple of buff shots of Ralgha and Jahkai as well!

"In the last minute of extra time, the goalkeeper made the save!"