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You all can identify any fighter in space at this point… but what about the small arms? Today we've put together a guide to the smaller weapons of Wing Commander Academy: handguns, rifles, grenades and more! Animated shows like Academy create a sort of visual bible of model sheets of "props" that can be reused from episode to episode… resulting in a consistency where the same weapon can appear each time that type is needed. It's interesting to see where Academy does this and where it creates new weapons for particular stories! We've divided everything by faction: Space Force, Marines, Kilrathi, Dioscuri and then unique weapons that appear only once associated with a particular character. Enjoy!

Terran Confederation Space Force

The Space Force pistol is the most common weapon to appear on Wing Commander Academy, used by six different episodes. Like the similarly prolific Kilrathi Pistol, it has more

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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 III: The Search for Spock and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here (it's a weird one!). 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 traveled to distant galaxies and lived through some of the most deadly warfare in human history… and now we can add surviving high school in Los Angeles to our list of accomplishments! Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a movie that never quite comes together: it's endlessly promising a slightly better film that you sincerely wish you were watching. It's perfectly pleasant and certainly plenty of fun… but you come away wondering why there wasn't just a little more there.

As previously noted, the Wing Commander connection is slight: the original introductory story for Privateer included a character named Jake Rubio, a sketchy privateer who attempts to take advantage of the player when he is just starting out as an independent operator. Rubio's appearance was to be based on actor Paul Reubens' appearance in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Reubens plays vampire

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Here's a piece of fan art I never expected to see: a chibi version of the Kilrathi priestess from Secret Missions 2 by DeKreteOne on DeviantArt!

This is one that is a little less than usual, but I still wanted to try. I've enjoyed the Wing Commander series since my dad showed me the games when I was a kid. The Kilrathi always stuck in my mind as such a neat villain race, and the Priestess of Sivar, one of the only female Kilrathi ever to be seen (in a cutscene in Secret Missions 2 for the first game), has remained in my mind since I first saw her.

I drew this a while back, and just got around to wrapping up the colors/shading. Even though it is a little obscure of a concept, and not everyone enjoys the idea of more than one pair of breasts, I will probably draw some more art of her when I come up with some new concepts. I liked drawing her, and exploring what she would look like under the (admittedly

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Last month, we posted some cool Hornet art by ulimann644 on DeviantArt. At the time we wondered what they were going to do next… and now we know, one of my favorite Wing Commander ship designs of all time: the original Fralthi!

Fralthi-class Carrier (DeviantArt)

This is my second WING COMMANDER mesh. The FRALTHI-CLASS Cruiser/Light Carrier of the Kilrathi in WING COMMANDER 1.

Hope you like it.

Software:
- Lightwave 2024
- Photoshop

Ulimann644 also posted two work in progress versions which show how much effort when into this ship.

Fralthi-class Carrier (DeviantArt)

This is a second WIP-Picture of my second WING COMMANDER mesh.

I made some changes at the basic-colors and added a few new details. The Light Carrier/Cruiser has also it's gun-turrets now.

Hope you like it.

Software:
- Lightwave 2024

Fralthi-class Carrier WIP 1 (DeviantArt)

This is a first WIP-Picture of my second WING COMMANDER mesh - a few others will

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Spock has been found – and guess what, he regenerated and lived his whole life and happened to end up exactly as old as he was the first time. What luck! In all seriousness, we loved Star Trek III and talked a lot about how important it was in setting up the next twenty years of Star Trek storytelling.

This week, things are changing just a little bit: we're moving from the previous collection of films, which were exclusively ones which inspired Wing Commander, to add a new set of movies that are referenced in Wing Commander stories (either in front of or behind the screens). If we come across another reference to a movie that inspired Wing Commander, we'll prioritize that in future weeks. Until then, enjoy a new batch of films with a little more variety… and some interesting Wing Commander connections that we'll explore in these intro posts.

With that in mind, we're kicking things off with the Star Wars

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

This month's analysis of the influence held by key figures in the core systems has arrived, courtesy of Conrad Sterling of Vox Galactica.
His latest survey of system populations suggests the following five powers enjoy the largest sphere of influence:
Rank 1: Aisling Duval – 1,661 systems
Rank 2: Edmund Mahon - 1,581 systems
Rank 3: Arissa Lavigny-Duval – 1,480 systems
Rank 4: Yuri Grom – 1,114 systems
Rank 5: Li Yong-Rui – 1,018 systems
The largest increase in system influence belonged to Aisling Duval who can claim an additional 104 systems as supporters.
Vox Galactica will provide another update on the state of the powers next month.

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We recently put together an article covering the names of the different transports in Wing Commander II. A few weeks later I was surprised to discover I had received a pretty fascinating anonymous message about it:

I was just reading the Wing Commander II transports article, and noticing the breakdown with the comm portraits I remembered: have you guys ever written about how those portraits are originally from Ultima VI (Gwenno and Nomaan)? I can't be the only one who noticed that, right?

We had not written such an article because we had never noticed the connection! But sure enough, it's 100% true: both of the VDU images for the male and female freighter pilots in Wing Commander II are reused from NPC portraits in Ultima VI! To the best of my knowledge (and despite the huge amount of crossover between Wing Commander and Ultima players, myself included) I've never seen anyone else point this out.

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This one is straight outta the Wing Commander Discord! Talented regular user Friend Computer has created three Wing Commander fonts for everyone to use. They say: "You might want to note there are minor differences to improve readability and kerning. Otherwise the fonts are free to use in projects as people see fit." Awesome! They've created a font based on the one used in computer menus in Wing Commander III and IV and then two more based on ones seen in Privateer: the Quine 4000 font and the in flight nav computer font.

Wing Leader

Note: "This is my version on Wing Commander Font. There are minor changes to the font to improve readability and kerning There's a few style choices I made as some of the letters didn't feel consistent.

Download

• Regular
• Monospace

Quine 4000

Note: "Here's the Privateer font from the QUINE 4000 computer with some small adjustments for readability. I had to guess on the extra

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Zorgon Peterson has issued a public call for support in the final production phase of the long-anticipated Panther Clipper Mk II.
The heavy freighter, hailed as the largest solo-pilot cargo vessel ever produced for civilian use, has encountered logistical setbacks. Whilst the perpetrator has not been explicitly named, analysts have pointed towards retributive pirate operations following the Kumo Crew's recent defeat in Beta-3 Tucani.
A spokesperson for Zorgon Peterson said:
"We remain fully committed to launching the Panther Clipper Mk II on schedule. With the help of the independent pilot community, we aim to stabilise supply chains and defend our shipping lanes."
Pilots are invited to support the initiative from Vespucci City in the Aiaba system. Assistance is requested in two forms: deliveries of Superconductors, Polymers and Gallium to the station, and anti-piracy operations to protect

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The recent three-way conflict between Princess Aisling Duval, Jerome Archer, and Li Yong-Rui has drawn to a close, with all parties claiming success.
The campaign began with Federal and Sirius-aligned forces launching operations into Princess Aisling's territory around the Daikulcandi system, citing concerns over instability following her prolonged absence from domestic affairs. Imperial loyalists responded in high numbers, rallying behind Princess Aisling's call to arms and defending her influence over several key systems.
Aisling's forces retained control in Daikulcandi and neighbouring strongholds but were forced to concede territory in Gondul and Santy where both Archer's Federal supporters and the Sirius Corporation's auxiliary fleets concentrated their efforts.
Senator Zemina Torval, who had questioned Aisling's ability to defend her territory, issued a frank statement acknowledging the

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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 are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is The Empire Strikes Back and you can find details on why we're watching it 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 found the Search for Spock worth the effort! It sometimes feels like Star Trek III gets a bad rap just to fit together the 'even good, odd bad' Star Trek movie joke. The reality is that it only ever falters at the very end with a final ten minutes of dull Vulcan resurrection that loses more and more meaning the further we travel from the tastes of 1980s fandom. But everything else, what a movie! And not only that, Star Trek III takes the world of Star Trek II and twists it into what it will become for the next thirty years. The 'tone' of Star Trek TNG and its spinoffs is born in Search for Spock's first act… as are a huge number of the models, sets and ideas (including the modern Klingon) that will go on to fuel an enormous franchise. And a rousing story, to boot.

The big connection to Wing Commander is that Star Trek III was the origin of the

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StarfleetDesign is a prolific and talented illustrator known for recreating obscure Star Trek-related graphics... and sometimes imagining new ones! That's exactly what happened here, with a Wing Commander-styled take on the Star Trek logo.

Star Trek / Wing Commander Mashup Logo (ArtStation)

A custom Star Trek logo in the style of the Wing Commander logo from the original game box art. This is entirely vector art created with Affinity Designer, but wit texturing and other adjustments made using Affinity Photo.

Star Trek in the style of the Wing Commander logo. Vector art created with Affinity Designer

A horizontal version, created mainly for anyone that wants to use it as a header image on social media

I actually don't know much about Wing Commander, but I am a fan of the STOP typeface created by Aldo Novarese (1971)

Detail of texture effects

Detail of raw vector art

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We've got a couple of updates for Origin composer George Oldizey's Wing Commander album project. First is the news that the vinyl albums continue to suffer extended delays. Work is continuing, but certain elements need to be redone and all of this takes time. To me, this sounds like pretty typical stuff for a project of this nature, but it will means fans on the higher tiers of the original Kickstarter campaign will need to continue to hang tight. On the bright side, the digital and CD versions of the music are complete and they are just wonderful. Now that people who pledged for just these products in the campaign have been taken care of, Mr. Oldziey has added the items for wide scale purchase from his website. Stop by here if you'd like to pick up the album files for $25 or on disc for $50. The first orchestral album as well as the jazz spinoff are also available!

Just thought I’d pass

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I made a terrible discovery while looking through our archive: we have not updated on the incredible Privateer 2 artwork of Jayden Morris (ArtStation) in years and they have recreated at least two truly incredible ships in that time. We reported on their stunning remake of the Anhur landing cutscene and recreation of the Jincilla Veldor using Star Citizen assets... but not their modern-game-quality models of the Straith and the Heron. We'll collect all of it in this update for posterity!

Morris has created a wonderful set of renders and animations of both ships, presenting them similar to a Star Citizen concept sale with different liveries, animations showing how they work and even some associated lore!

Privateer 2 - Straith (ArtStation)

Remake of the Straith light fighter ship from Privateer 2 (1996).

Original: https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Straith_Light_Fighter_PL01

Using weapon models from Star

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There's probably no point in reviewing The Empire Strikes Back, but it's safe to report that we all loved it. This week, the Wing Commander movie club is going back to the 1950s to take a look at the beginning of our future. We'll be watching Forbidden Planet, a movie that spawned (among many other things) the original Star Trek! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Wing Commander Academy's Lords of the Sky opens with Tolwyn briefing the cadets. He shows a map of the Dioscuri system which they'll be patrolling and if you look very carefully you can see the background painters have added a number of labels to surrounding stars. One of them is a nood to Star Trek (M1701) and one is a reference to Alien (LV442). And at the top left of the image you can find C57D… a reference to the hero starship in Forbidden Planet, the United Planets Cruiser C-57D!

Privateer 2 doesn't just name ships

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Zorgon Peterson has officially announced the release of the long-awaited Panther Clipper, with an initial run deployed for purchase amidst ongoing production issues.
The Panther Clipper is described as the largest and most advanced heavy freighter currently licensed for civilian use. With a focus on maximum cargo capacity and long-range endurance, it is expected to redefine logistics operations for independent pilots, corporations, and faction-aligned haulers alike.
Final specifications include a maximum cargo capacity of over 1200 tonnes, giving it the same capacity as a fully laden Type-8 and Imperial Cutter combined. It is also the first ship that can be equipped with the MkII cargo rack.
A spokesperson for Zorgon Peterson offered the following statement:
"This is a proud moment for our entire team. The Panther Clipper relaunches following decades of development and adaption to the growing

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I'm always excited to discover a new piece of Wing Commander-related advertising... and we've got a big one today! Baen ran these unique magazine advertisements for Wing Commanders End Run and Fleet Action in Science Fiction Chronicle in December 1993 and January 1994, respectively. There's some pretty unique copy in here: "soil words from a soft Kilrathi mouth." (?!) It's crazy to think that there was a time when the two biggest Wing Commander novels came out just months apart; the Wing Commander universe certainly grew by leaps and bounds in 1994!

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If you missed out on the original GOG summer sale, fear not, because they've now kicked off sequel summer classics promo. The Wing Commander series qualifies and each title is marked down 50% to $2.99 per package. Improve your summer with just a few clicks!

Relive those late summer nights spent with friends, battling through the games that defined your childhood. Reconnect with the classics you loved and the memories they carry - it’s time to play like you used to.