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Today we've got a different kind of video to share. PixelPusher Mailman is going page-by-page through a thirty year old copies of PC Games. I just like the concept of someone lovingly paging through a vintage magazine like this. There is a section in his latest issue on Wing Commander Armada that actually makes the game look really cool. Unfortunately the narrator here wasn't into it, but both the strategic gameplay portion and multiplayer are very special. Anyhow, this clip is in German, but you can turn on YouTube's automatic translation feature to get real time captions in your language of choice. Jump to 17:41 if it doesn't auto start in the right place.

Come with me back in time again – to 1994, to be precise! In this video, I flick through the 09/1994 issue of PC Games.Star Wars is on the cover, unfortunately not quite as present in the inside pages. There is only a small preview box for

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Tonight's project: added the Super Wing Commander cockpits to the WCCIC's cockpit reference page!

Don't forget the SWC Dralthi! I do three versions: no alarms at 100%, all alarms active and then one with damage states:

I've also added Wing Commander III and I'll start looking at the console ports at some point. Find all of these and more in the WCPedia here!

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I'm happy to report that our second Wing Commander movie night was a success! We had a great group of fans who enjoyed seeing–and lightly roasting–The Dam Busters together this past Friday night. You can find the complete after action report later this week. So next we're going to be watching a movie that's a little more modern… with some more obvious connections to both the original Wing Commander game and the 1999 film. That's right, on Friday you are welcome to join us for a group watch of Top Gun (1986).

Top Gun is a 1986 action film based on the United States Navy's elite program that teaches top fighter pilots skills that they in turn pass on to their compatriots. It helped usher in lead Tom Cruise's ongoing superstardom and is one of the prototypes of the modern blockbuster. My generation loved it for mixing pulse-pounding air combat with engaging characters we couldn't help but root for… but

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Here, enjoy some Amiga WC1! This is far from the first time that we've posted an Amiga playthrough, but it's always fun to watch. Plenty of people got their first look at the game on PC or Super Nintendo, so for those folks, it's fun to see something like this to pick out the many small differences. Check out LOAF's comparison of the TrainSim and Barracks as an example!

The original Amiga version of Wing Commander had just 16 colors. It was released right before the Amiga 1200, which introduced the 256-color AGA version. Wing Commander is a computer game series from Origin Systems, the series creator is the American game developer Chris Roberts. The series is about humanity's fight for survival in the 27th century against aggressive alien races, particularly the cat-like Kilrathi.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

With a renewed focus on internal politics within the core systems, Conrad Sterling of Vox Galactica has provided an analysis of the current support for key figures of importance based on system allegiance.
Population surveys suggest the following five powers lead the way in this early stage:
Rank 1: Edmund Mahon - 1355 systems
Rank 2: Aisling Duval - 1296 systems
Rank 3: Arissa Lavigny-Duval - 1162 systems
Rank 4: Yuri Grom - 956 systems
Rank 5: Pranav Antal - 659 systems
With power influence fluctuating from week to week, it remains to be seen if these powers will enjoy their relatively large influence over the coming months.
Powers are offering plenty of incentives and rewards for those pledging to their cause, with independent pilots reaping the benefits of the growing struggle for prestige and authority.
Vox Galactica will continue to monitor the ongoing political landscape as it unfolds.

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Here's a little treasure: six pieces of rarely-seen Wing Commander cover artwork without the trade dress! These stunning paintings were created by sci-fi and fantasy artist Jan Patrik Krásný for the Czech language translations of six Wing Commander novels. The books were published between 2001 and 2005 by Poutnik Knihy. Most interestingly, they were published not for the Wing Commander IP but because Dr. William Forstchen is particularly popular in the Czech Republic! The resulting cover art is a kind of what-if scenario where the novels are imagined on their own without the associated games!

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Caliban System, 2669; second mission. Captain Eisen has ordered you to clear every single nav point to prevent the Kilrathi from reporting the Victory's jump point. You battle through two nav points of fierce fighters and then find… four capital ships, unescorted? There's a light destroyed, two corvettes and a…

… it's a transport? No, it's a… "scout"? The existence of the scout has long been recognized but to the best of my knowledge no one had really looked into /why/ it was there. So I did… and learned some interesting things in the process, including a pretty significant change to something we had previously thought about the making of the game!

Wing Commander III famously shipped on time… but to make this happen the developers had to cut some broken features rather than spend time to get them working. A number of these changes were related to an item attachment bug which caused issues in some

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Top Gun, which has been inspiring the series since the very first game. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST, but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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Greetings WingNuts,

In honor of last week's premiere meeting of the Wing Commander Movie Club (name pending) we've decided to start posting after action reports talking through what the group thought about and discussed with each movie. If all goes according to plan we'll run them in the news on Fridays alongside the reminder posts! Now what did we think about The Dam Busters…

In general, we found the movie to be extremely dry… especially the first half, which focuses on the development of the bouncing bomb and the training for the attack. Audience sensibilities have changed a lot in sixty-nine years: the thought of starting a war movie with old men talking about math and then not getting to an actual air battle until the very end would be unthinkable now. That's not to criticize the movie itself, it's just very difficult for a younger viewer to connect with today. Along the same lines, it's

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Want another way to get Wing Commander news and interaction? We're happy to announce that we have set up an official Bluesky account for the Wing Commander Combat Information Center! Think of it as an updated version of Twitter that features a lot fewer Admirals Tolwyn and quite a few more adult depictions of Prince Thrakhath. And hey, bonus, they got the color of the sky just right.

You can access the profile here. We'll be posting news and updates and interacting with the community as much as we can. And if you're new to the service here's a very short directory of Wing Commander-relevant accounts that are already posting to the service. If you'd like to be added, please let us know in the comments!

• Richard Garriott - Origin Systems founder and assistant designer for the Wing Commander TCG.
• Siobhan Beeman - designer on the original Wing Commander and director Wing Commander 2
• Mark Hamill - the actor

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A few days ago we showed you the cover art for the Czech language editions of six Wing Commander novels. One thing that's always particularly interesting to think about is what the cover of any given Wing Commander novel is showing… and these are no exception! Case in point: the Czech version of Action Stations shows a wing of Raptor-like fighters with some kind of space station complex and/or group of ships in the background. We've run the numbers and we think there's only one scene this could be: a squadron of Wildcats from the Concordia (including young Geoffrey Tolwyn and Vance Richards) leading the counterattack against the Kilrathi at McAuliffe or perhaps defending the Concordia. The main station may be Alexandria and the surrounding ships (if they are separate objects) would be Terran and Kilrathi warships engaged in the battle.

What is a Wildcat? Action Stations gives us a brief look at the

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Professor Alba Tesreau, Head of Aegis, has issued a warning for all anti-xeno fleets to remain on high alert.
The warning comes as human forces continue to push towards the last remaining Thargoid Titan, Cocijo. While victory over the Thargoid invasion force seems likely at this stage, Tesreau has urged defensive fleets not to become complacent.
"We have seen repeatedly that the Thargoid fleets are capable of surprising us when their defeat seems inevitable. The Proteus Wave incident in HIP 22460 is a perfect example of this – our confidence was such that Salvation's celebratory speech was broadcast across the core systems only moments before he was killed by a Thargoid counterattack, along with thousands of military personnel."
"Seo Jin-ae has - rather publicly - insisted that her recent medical emergency was the result of the Thargoids seeking to learn about her and, by extension, humanity

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Top Gun? More like Top Fun! The third meeting of the Wing Commander movie club was a great success; we all had a great time finding out that Top Gun maybe wasn't the perfect film we remembered from our youths… and noting its massive influences on the entire Wing Commander franchise, of course! This week instead of going for a broad inspiration, we're going to be zeroing in on a very specific one in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

It's a good bet you're already familiar with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. It's the last of the films spun off of the original Star Trek television series. It tells a story about old soldiers conspiring to prevent newly possible peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire with the Enterprise heroes there to save the day. Considered by many to be a favorite in the series, Star Trek VI is a

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Sharpshooter recently noticed an interesting little background thread in Wing Commander IV and decided to pull at it. The game's ship selection screens, which shows specifications for each flyable ship in the game when they are available for a mission, includes an interesting figure not included in other locations: "Dmg/Salvo". This measurement, listed in du or damage units, shows how much potential damage one single salvo from a ship's main guns can cause (not accounting for outside modifiers like windows or interiors on capital ships). Four of them match the game's internal gun damage values exactly: the Hellcat (2 Ion Cannons & 2 Particle Guns = (43x2)+(30x2) = 146 du), the Banshee (4 Lasers = (18x4) = 72 du), the Bearcat (4 Light Tachyon Gun = (4x50) = 200 du) and the Lance (2 Plasma Gun & 2 Tachyon Gun = (67x2)+(70x2) = 274 du).

The remaining three ships, however, do NOT match the in-game data.

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We're getting ahead of the holiday shopping this year with an updated list of Wing Commander sales! GOG is getting into the spirit with a 59% discount on the WC series, which makes each package $2.45. We're also seeing that there will be a 20% sale coming for the Malcolm McDowell poster below, but it doesn't seem to be effective yet. Academy DVD sets at Deep Discount are also the cheapest they've been in years ($9.62!). Lastly, the CIC glasses and coasters at Zazzle are 25% off with the coupon code BLKFRIWK2024. The coupon may just work today, but there's likely to be another one issued for the weekend. Good luck shopping for the Wingnut(s) in your life!

Print Art

End Run Cover by David Mattingly $20-$100 (search for "Wing Commander") Malcolm McDowell Autographed WC3 PSX Print $65 (20% off sale coming)

PC Games ($2.45 each)

Wing Commander 1&2 Wing Commander 3 Wing Commander 4 DVD Wing Commander

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The last remaining Thargoid Titan, Cocijo, has unexpectedly left the Col 285 Sector BA-P c6-18 system.
Reports from human AX forces fighting through surrounding systems to expose the Titan say it has reverted to the transient signal source detected prior to the Titan's arrival on the edges of human space. Travelling at phenomenal speeds, Cocijo appears to be heading further into the core systems.
A general alert has been raised in all populated systems. Aden Tanner, special military advisor to Aegis, gave the following statement via all newsfeeds:
"Aegis sensors have confirmed that Cocijo is on a path deep into human territory. Rather than seek to escape from the war, the final Titan intends to bring the fight to our heartlands."
"Precautionary evacuation efforts have begun in Sol, based on our earliest predictions of Cocijo's trajectory. But all civilians must be prepared to evacuate their

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The Wing Commander Combat Information Center team would like to wish you and yours a very happy Thanksgiving! When times are tough–like, say, when you've been imprisoned by a treacherous pirate–it's a genuine relief that you can still gather around the ten-legged space turkey and enjoy life with your loved ones. Also Maniac was there.

In all seriousness, we hope you are doing well today and always. And also a reminder that if you're looking for an internet family that good friends are always welcome on our Discord. We had planned to run a big in-universe article covering the history of the Pilgrims (GET IT?!) today but isn't just not ready for prime time yet. But a little taste of the research being compiled for the project is below to tide you over!

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At its height, the Pilgrim Alliance consisted of twelve member systems located primarily in the Terra and Vearrier quadrants of Sol Sector and at least seven more recently established colony worlds located across Vega. Eleven of the twelve Pilgrim Alliance systems have been identified. This list does not include Terran Confederation-settled worlds occupied by the Alliance during the 2631-2635 war.

• Alpha Centauri
• Beacon
• Bradshaw
• Cygnus
• Faith
• Frase
• Luyten
• McDaniel's World
• Promise
• Proxima Centauri
• Sirius

The twelfth system is either Canarus, Krieger, Talos, Tikopal or Weslyn. Beacon was the administrative capital of the Alliance and McDaniel's World was the religious center. After the surrender, nine of these Pilgrim systems were integrated into the Confederation. Three systems, Faith, Promise, McDaniel's World, along with seven colony planets, were allowed to remain semi-autonomous. The semi-autonomous Pilgrim

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which is explicitly referenced as having influenced the Wing Commander movie's explosion VFX. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST, but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander Movie Club has visited the danger zone and lived to tell the tale! We found that while Top Gun remains a striking movie full of fast action, striking cinematography and endearing characters… it also isn't much of a story. The scenes we remembered from years past were still wonderful but the lack of connective tissue seemed more apparent today. There's not really a character arc for Maverick: the film seems to set him up for a decision between being a devil-may-care fighter pilot like Iceman and a family man like Goose… and then Goose dies and instead he has to (fairly rapidly) get over his grief. But since the accident isn't his fault and he ultimately just splits the difference (he goes back to the girl AND is still a hotshot pilot!) there's not a very satisfying resolution.

But do you know what other movie has that exact combination of action, cinematography and