09
May
News categories list
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09
May
…The final missing ebook from the Baen Wing Commander catalog continues to march towards release. As previously mentioned, the Milk Run story is available as a sample chapter to help get fans excited. Since we last reported, the novel has been added for preorder on Kobo, and we've added links to Google Play as well. End Run fully releases on July 3, 2018. Also check out our new the new and improved Book Grid that Kris and LOAF made. All the digital options you could want in your WC novel life are now at your fingertips! (except Freedom Flight on Google Play, apparently)
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon Kindle
- Apple iBooks
- B&N Nook
- Kobo
- Google Play
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon Kindle
- Apple iBooks
- B&N Nook
- Kobo
- Google Play
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon Kindle
- Apple iBooks
- B&N Nook
- Kobo
- Google Play
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon Kindle
- Apple iBooks
- B&N Nook
- Kobo
- Google Play
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon -
09
May
…For almost three centuries, Squadron 88 delivered on its motto — “Stand and Deliver.” The squadron’s lineage goes back to the Second Tevarin War, though it didn’t see any action in that conflict. It has spent time along the Perry Line and, most famously, made the ultimate sacrifice during the Fall of Caliban. It was there the 88th earned its famous and fateful nickname “The Lost Squad.”
The 88th was formed in 2608 as the Tevarin military was pushing their way through the Empire for a second time. Their leader, Corath’Thal, was expertly using guerilla tactics to terrorize the Human public and force the UEE Navy to divide their more powerful military resources. In response, the Navy reorganized its ranks to better respond to the Tevarin’s asymmetrical warfare. It was as part of this restructuring that the 88th came into existence.
Classified as a support squadron, the 88th provided logistical help to
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08
May
…This is Ambassador Odo. The Hur'q are about to devour this planet, and we don't have enough time to get everyone to safety. The Dominion ships have been incapacitated by the Hur'q swarm. Help us secure the civilians before the main Hur’q forces arrive! The ever-ravenous Hur’q swarm are attacking Dominion planets. Help the Jem’Hadar ships keep the swarm at bay while the planet organizes an evacuation plan. To increase the number of citizens we can save, we’ve decided to use multiple planetary escape routes. Keep the routes clear of the Hur’q or they’ll devour the transport ships! Swarm is our first five player cooperative space queue available in the “Victory is Life” expansion. Participating in it will earn you a choice of Fleet, or Gamma marks. The queue is available to captains over level 50. Good luck, and good hunting. Tiffany “Wubblez” Chu Content Designer Star Trek Online
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08
May
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Hello Citizens,
Last week, CitizenCon 2948 was all the buzz with tickets going on sale in waves on Wednesday and Thursday. Didn’t pick up a ticket? Fear not, for we still have Standard Access tickets available here. We can’t wait to see many of you in October!
Also, we were stunned by your ability to capture awe-inspiring scenic vistas for Round 2 of our Screenshot Contest on Spectrum. Congratulations to citizen NarayanN7 for winning and grabbing an Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P. This week’s theme is Lifestyle. We want to see what a day in the life of your character is all about. Lounging at the bar, dance parties, shopping for your latest wardrobe, and more! You can enter the contest in this Spectrum thread.
With that, let’s see what’s going on this week:
Today sees a brand new episode of Calling All Devs, the show answering the questions asked and voted on by you, the Star Citizen community. This week
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08
May
You only get the Golden Sun the first time...
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08
May
LOAF recently found a nifty marketing prerelease snap of the Wing Commander 4 box. As the story
goes, the stark geometric pattern of the main box eventually gave way to a slipcase sleeve with a more action-oriented center. You can see in the shot below that this bears a fairly strong resemblance to the final design. The core art and even font are in place, but the lettering was repositioned a bunch before production. Note that it just says "Wing IV" on the side though!
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08
May
On May 8, your adventure continues in Warmind, the second expansion to Destiny 2.
Golden Age satellites slam into the surface of the Hellas Basin on Mars. Icy glaciers thaw, revealing the core of the Warmind Rasputin – and an ancient Hive army, bent on its destruction.
Destiny 2 Expansion II: Warmind introduces new activities, new weapons and gear, more endgame content, and an all-new story.
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07
May
…Michael Dürr makes very cool science fiction and fantasy sculptures, and his latest design is a Wing Commander classic. He's crafted the Exeter destroyer in pewter and then painted it with acrylics. There's a lot of wonderful detail here in everything from the hull plating and gun turrets to the windows and lights. There's even a starry black stand. It would fit right in to any collection alongside some of the higher end 3D prints that people have had made. Fans in the EU can actually make this happen and order a kit for themselves from his website
here. Even if you're not located in the EU, check out his site for some of his other awesome designs!
This is my take on a model of a Exeter-Class-Destroyer. I sculpted it from green-stuff and casted it from pewter. It is made in the scale 1:5000 giving the model a length of 7,2 cm. The model consists of eleven parts. Once assambled I coloured it with
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07
May
…It's Friday, so listening to some grumpy gripes seems like a fitting end to a rough week.
Gray GhostsOld Grizzled Gamershas written a quasi-review of Wing Commander 3, and as you might expect, they have some strong thoughts about it. The author is actually harkening back to the 3DO version of WC3, which has some
exciting differencescompared to the PC and Playstation editions. He starts off making fun of all the repetitive transitions, and while most of us quickly turned these off, I don't actually recall off the top of my head if this option was readily available on consoles. Of course, even those transitions were jaw-dropping back in 1994. Despite a few other aspects that haven't aged particularly gracefully, it's clear that they have a soft spot for the game and all its everlasting charm. Check out the full article
here.
The space combat is what made the game engaging, but it isn’t what made the
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07
May
The prince doesn't like to be mocked
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07
May
…Several years ago we
reported ona video that just contained the previews attached to the front of Wing Commander on VHS. It was an oddity at the time, but apparently there's a market for everything. Fast forward to 2018 and that clip has nearly 15,000 views on YouTube. His similar segment for
Toy Storyhas more than 700,000 views and here's a
Lion King IIversion that's pushing a million. So apparently this is a real thing. As such, a competing YouTuber with a similar idea has just posted the WC VHS previews again. This time it's a shaky cam recording of a CRT television that blurs in and out of focus. This is even worse than the earlier version, so there's no need to watch it, but I'm just amazed it exists. Maybe check out the swanky flair involved as he slides the case into view right at the beginning. That's art. He has 1300 subscribers and 1.6 million total views, so while still an up and
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07
May
That was a great scene
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07
May
…This is the last in a series of interesting video features published in the mid '90s by the CD-ROM "magazine" Interactive Entertainment. Their Wing Commander 4 review appeared in issue 23. The CD-ROM interface displayed screenshots from the game and overlaid them with low resolution videos. That experience has been recreated here rather than displaying the videos full screen. Again, while it looks pretty dated today, the setup was really cool for the time. The vast majority of internet access out there was still dialup, so this was the only practical way to experience something like this!
Text article that accompanied the video review on the CD:
The Commander Returns to Battle
A rogue band of pilots from the border worlds descends upon an innocent civilian transport and its escorts and destroy them by unleashing a mysterious device. Cut to our hero, Christopher Blair, once again played by the
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07
May
Welcome to the Vega Sector! Here's the original
star mapsketch that became a page of Wing Commander's Claw Marks manual. The map was redone for several ports and even included as a poster in the FM Towns release (the blue one). The only problem: it's supposed to be to scale but the distances change in each version! Note that "Hell's Kitchen" becomes "Apocalypse" in the SNES version because Nintendo.
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07
May
Avid Wing Commander collector
Christian Kleinhas found another rare artifact. He managed to locate a British copy of the game on 5.25" low density disks that may be an earlier release than the mass produced copy most of us are familiar with. In it, Hunter is named "Dart," which we know was an original placeholder name for the character. The first screenshot below shows this, and the second is from the British 3.5" high density disk release. LOAF points out that the name change came late in development, and both Hunter and Maniac actually have "Dart" and "Joker" nameplates on their helmets in all versions of the final game!
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07
May
But let's just say he could hypothetically cruise at a cool 500 kilometers per second...
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07
May
To beat Kurasawa 2, you just have to believe...
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07
May
The Secret Ops
Model Upgrade Packhas a new Nephilim transport. Thanks to some graphical magic by Dark Sentinel and DefianceIndustries, the Triton goes from being an ugly gray
tubeto an exotic alien worm. It looks like a lot of fun to blow up!
Here's the explodey version!
Update time true believers! Today we are showcasing another great Nephilim ship brought to you by Dark Sentinel. The Triton (aka Leatherback) transport. Essentially a giant cigar case with guns, DS has done a great job making it look more like the original concept art, good and buggy! He's also bringing spines back. That's right spines! This ship is loaded with them! If you don't like spines, go home! Also I got the fun part of blowing it up, and so can you! Look for this and other exciting Nephilim additions in the next patch - Coming soon!
