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Lakon Spaceways has announced the early release of the Type-11 Prospector, a new mining vessel designed specifically for laser mining operations.
The Prospector builds on Lakon's reputation for industrial reliability and functionality. Featuring an exclusive Large Mining Hardpoint and the Mk II Mining Multi-Limpet Controller, the Type-11 can extract higher yields per asteroid than any previous mining vessel. Engineers confirm that its optimised loadout and expanded limpet capacity make it ideal for laser mining, setting a new standard.
A Lakon senior design engineer commented:
"From the very first prototype, the Type-11 Prospector was designed to deliver results. The new mining tool debuting with the Type-11, with its enhanced targeting system, offers pin-point precision when excising fragment yields via laser mining."
The Type-11 Prospector also includes a dedicated fighter bay, giving pilots

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club has explored Los Angeles of the… recent past… and if there was ever any doubt, we all love Blade Runner. It's an incredible movie whose aesthetic grabs you from the first frame and carries you through even the film's weaker moments (which include the meat of the climactic third act fight and in the theatrical version we watched the well-intentioned-but-poorly-done narration.

The big story when it comes to Wing Commander is Blade Runner's connection to Privateer's New Detroit environment. We thought it would be fun to walk you through exactly how we go from one of Syd Mead's stunning concept paintings to the finished animation in Privateer.

And here's how that concept was realized by director Ridley Scott:

Here is an excerpt from a March 18 1992 art list by Privateer's lead designer Joel Manners. He describes the planet, then known as New Chicago instead of

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a case of escort duty you DO want to pull: AEdwardBaker is back with another fantastic piece of Wing Commander art! This one is called Exeter Escort and it shows a mighty Exeter battleship escorting the famed Tiger's Claw. Maybe it's the Formidable! You can find the original on DeiantArt and more of their fantastic work here.

Exeter class destroyer escouting the carrier Tiger's Claw. Ships from Wing Commander.

Done in Blender.

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We received an e-mail with a question we thought was worth investigating: "I've been reading about Ultima VII: The Lost Vale and it got me thinking: were there any Wing Commander expansion disks in the works that didn't make it out? The short answer is yes, two Wing Commander addons were solicited in some capacity by Origin but very little is known beyond that. They've both been long the subject of rumor and speculation and so we thought we'd check the archives and at least prove they were technically announced!

Wing Commander II: Special Operations 3

In late 1991, Origin held a conference on CompuServe with Ellen Guon and Siobhan Beeman talking about the imminent release of Wing Commander II. One of the surprising things mentioned was that there would be THREE Special Operations disks. "Special Operations 3" was never listed for preorder and we have found very little mention of the concept over the

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Wing Commander Academy storyboard artist Tim Eldred is a true old school anime fan; in fact, his spectacular Art Vault website maintains a continually updated, world class section on the anime that inspired him. His familiarity with shows like Space Battleship Yamato and VOTOMS was a clear influence on the board work he did on Academy.

When he was designing the character sheets for the Tiger's Claw deck crew (first seen in The Most Delicate Instrument) he included a little Easter egg intended primarily for the shows' Japanese animators but too small to really appear on the show: a tattoo of Captain Harlock's distinct skull emblem on one of the crewman's forearms. Well, those animators took the nod seriously and you can ever-so-briefly pause the show to find the tattoo!

Space Pirate Captain Harlock is a 1978 anime series about the pirate crew of a starship defending Earth from an alien invasion from

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Greetings WingNuts,

I'm sad to report that we didn't think much of Judge Dredd! It's such a weird mess of a movie... the cool British sci-fi world and the world class SFX just weren't enough to balance out a confusing, disengaged plot and some actors... chief among them the bizarre choice of Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider as the leads. The setup is too offputting and doesn't spend enough time engaging you... you just don't ever feel like rooting for anyone. Incredible props, visual effects and sets, though! The happiest surprise of the night was the discovery of the after credits song, the bespoke "Dredd Song" provided by... The Cure?! What was going on with this movie?

... but we DID find our Wing Commander tank pretty readily! The police vehicles show up throughout the film but are especially visible during the opening riot scene and then at the very end of the film when everything has been

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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Twenty six years ago our team launched the Wing Commander Combat Information Center and somehow after all those years… we're still here! Whether you've been with us all that time or you're just discovering the Wing Commander universe, welcome to the party!

I've been a part of a lot of communities–I even built a pretty notable Wing Commander-adjacent one!--but there's nowhere I'm ever happier to come back than our group. Will we ever get a new Wing Commander game or book or cartoon or movie? I don't know… but I do know that I'm happier talking about anything with my Wing Commander friends on Discord and the forums. It's so exciting to see new people come along and discover the series and it's equally thrilling to see people find out that beyond an old space sim we're a pretty chill group of folks to spend time with. I'd like to thank everyone who makes that possible every day; whether you're making

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Mac has posted a new teaser for his next Wing Commander project. This one picks up on the Concordia theme from last week and now has the famous dreadnought anchoring an absolutely massive battle fleet. It's flanked by some of Klavs' most popular models, including Bengal class carriers and Waterloo cruisers. There are also scores of smaller destroyers, corvettes and fighters filling the space throughout. What an epic scene!

IT DIDNT CRASH THE COMPUTER ON RENDER!
WOOOOO#wingcommander pic.twitter.com/gG7aYVGwq6

— Mac's Lore (@MacsLore) October 5, 2023

  

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AD found this one on a new YouTube channel, 3DO World. It's a trailer for the 3DO version of Wing Commander from an in-store video sampler tape. Like the full version of WC3 on this console, the video quality depicted here is pretty good with minimal artifacting and solid colors. The trailer is fairly short overall, and you only get a quick shot of the gameplay at the end. Although the engine might look low res like the Playstation port, a handful of missions and features have been jazzed up in a very compelling way. It's definitely worth giving this one a try if you get an opportunity! You can find our collection of different WC3 trailers in CIC Holovids!

This is a trailer of the 3DO game, Wing Commander 3. This appeared on a VHS tape titled "3DO Video Sampler 5" that was distrusted with retailers circa 1996 in the US.

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Greg14 shared this French preview of Wingleader from a June 1990 issue of Génération 4. It appears to be based off previews from the Consumer Elections Show in Chicago. The name change to Wing Commander happened relatively close to launch, so a lot of the prime promotional materials from this summer emphasize the 'Leader' name. Can you imagine how amazing these huge screenshots would have looked at the time? Also check out that small in-game Wingleader logo!

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Goku has put together a new automation that enhances the experience of getting Wing Commander Prophecy to run. The game can occasionally have some compatibility quirks on modern Windows, which could put off some folks who might be trying for a Linux install. It's possible to get a nice smooth setup running though, and this script does so by properly configuring Prophecy and Secret Ops. Then it adds in the enhancement pack, OpenGL patch, FPS tool and even high quality movies. We don't have a test rig here to try it, so we're anxious to hear from more folks with first hand experience. If this helped you or there are additional questions, hit the discuss link and let Keen Bean know! You can find the program here - click "Show unpublished installers" to expand the relevant section.

If anyone's on Linux and would like to test out my Lutris script for Prophecy, please head here. You will have to click

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Rear Admiral Tarsus put this little script together. It's hypnotically simple. I keep clicking reload to see what Kilrathi I'm going to learn. What's their favorite ship and flying style? Click here and found out who's next.

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While researching the uniquely named Clydesdale and Free Trader-class transports in Wing Commander II, I happened to make another set of discoveries that I thought I should preserve with an update: no less than thirteen unique ships that are mentioned in Wing Commander II missions but which do not appear in the final game! The majority of these are likely ships that were at one time intended for missions but which, for whatever reason, ended up being cut… though several of them may have been the victim of a bug in Special Operations 1!

Every Wing Commander II mission has a 'cast' which defines which ships can be used in that scenario. Often, mission designers would remove ships from the mission itself but not drop them from the cast. This leaves behind a trace that can tell us the name of the cut ship, who was intended to pilot it and where it was originally to have been used! As with the transports,

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Last month, we held a special Saturday morning cartoon watch party in #WingNut where we watched the entire 'Warrior King' crossover saga that included Wing Commander Academy. Well, we had so much fun that we've decided to do it again! It's not possible to find anything quite as epic as the Warrior King saga so instead we've pulled together a collection of other Saturday morning shows that reference Wing Commander in some way! Here's the lineup:

Doug - Doug's Lost Weekend (1992, s2e25): This early episode of Doug (pre-Disney's Doug) will be extremely relatable to any Wing Commander fan: Doug becomes addicted to a space sim that is full of nods to the original Wing Commander!

Gridman the Hyper Agent - A Lonely Hacker (1993, s1e17): Gridman is a Japanese "tokusatsu" superhero show similar to the ones used as the basis for shows like Power Rangers in the United States. Watch carefully for the slightest of

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Here's a closer look at Super Wing Commander's awesome cross-series Easter egg. If you leave the game idle in the Tiger's Claw's lounge for enough time it will occasionally trigger an animated figure of Ultima's Avatar who flies by outside the ship. Here's a shot of the game and the sprite sheet used for the Avatar.

The Avatar's 3D animation is from the ending cutscene to Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle. There we see them flying through space to restore the balance between Order and Chaos. Then he is grabbed by an enorous red hand. This is the setup for the next game in the series which begins with the hand flinging him to the world of Pagan.

Here's a recording of the entire endgame:

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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 The Dam Busters, which Chris Roberts credits as inspiring the WC Movie's fantastic score. If you don't own a copy, a version is hosted by the Internet Archive. Feel free to drop by and hang!

When I set out to make "Wing Commander," I envisioned a classic World War II film as its model. Except that it was set in space, 500 years from now. This motif played strongly in the design and look of the picture. I also wanted it to play strongly in the score. I wanted the music to evoke some of the glorious old war film scores; full of heart, melody and heroic acts. "633 Squadron," "The Dam Busters" and other such classics came to my mind. When I first talked to David and Kevin about the score, they were in tune from

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It's been thirteen years since GOG.com started selling Wing Commander games. Over the years, they've added the entire primary DOS/Windows catalog, but some of the packages are starting to show their age. The last WC game to be added was Armada in November 2013, and there hasn't been a whole lot of tweaking since. A few critical bugs were fixed here and there, but as hardware and operating systems change, glitches have started to arise. And that doesn't even count the occasional bug that's been around since the games were first listed!

To help combat this, the service announced a new effort today to shore up some of their top titles. There are 100 games in the initial rollout, including Privateer and Wing Commander 3. Both have gotten a handful of updates to ensure they continue to run on modern systems. And both are 50% off to celebrate! We hope to see many more improvements added and more WC

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Binary Legends saw our recent post about their WC2 EGA video and offered up some more. While EGA clips are relatively uncommon, Secret Missions and Special Operations are even more rare! I know the typical video game archetype is to aim for the highest resolution and fanciest graphics options, but from an artistic and historic perspective, it's very cool to see how they made the game work with so few colors to choose from. Just check out that amazing EGA Waterloo class cruiser (the TCS Centurion!).

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the previous posts collected here.

When we picked up the Wing Commander IV Polaroids this was one I was sure we'd never figure out. It wasn't labeled and the picture wasn't especially clear. She could be a patron in the bar on Nephele (few of whom are visible!), a reporter or a politician from the Assembly scenes... or anywhere else! It turns out I did not need to fear: she's actually a character with a fairly major scene... the comm officer who sends a distress message from the Telamon System. Blair and Sosa listen in horror as she reveals the Black Lance attack:

If you can hear this, it might not be too late. Unmarked ships are attacking and many people are dying! We know planet FT957 is far from any other colony, but, if you have any Humanity, please, send help immediately! Otherwise, our world