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Hello,

We’re excited to let you know that today we are releasing our first major update of 2023. We’re calling it Fractal (version 4.1).

All players can earn a stunning new starship, the Utopia Speeder, which allows travellers to skim across planet surfaces at high velocity. We’re also launching a new Expedition – “Utopia” – which challenges players to work together and rebuild an abandoned solar system for the mysterious Utopia Foundation. Other expedition rewards include an exclusive new helmet (the Fearsome Visor), a robotic drone companion and much more.

Switch, PlayStation and Steam Deck all now support gyroscopic controls, making exploring and scanning new discoveries more comfortable and precise than ever.

Speaking of which, the Wonders Catalogue shows off your most incredible discoveries, from tallest mountain to strangest creature, giving you a detailed record of your journey and allowing you to compare your

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Klavs has wrapped up the exquisite Sabre and Ferret models that he showed off last month. There are two styles of Ferret - one P-64C in In-Sys colors and a Super Ferret in active Confed gray. The Sabre is also on display with plenty of heavy ordnance. Both have also been posted in high quality on SketchFab for potential fan project use. Klavs has also talked about the texturing process in greater detail. Here's a snippet:

I've started using Substance Painter for the textures, it's really intuitive after you get the hang of it. I'll typically draw panel lines, vents, fasteners, thermal protection materials, and other details. I'm really just trying to think about how the ground crews would access stuff, how the complex shapes would be manufactured, and assembled how the pilots get in and out (hand holds, ladders, etc). I'll then add placards and other details. The grunge is largely determined by

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Crazy find on the Internet Archive: an article from Soft World that's the 1992 Trade Commander press releases translated to Chinese... and the pen-and-ink art has been recolored in pastels! COOL!

Here's the original art. This was the first announcement of what would become Privateer and it features a lot of details about a much earlier version of the game's storyline. It's also the (only) source of 'Grayson Burrows' as the player character's name. I found the Chinese text by searching for "Tolnidan," the original name for the Gemini Sector and a word that's very close to being a googlenope.

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Here's another fun oddity by FekLeyrTarg. He's composed George Oldziey's WC3 Behemoth track in the MIDIS2Jam2 program. The instrument effect is kind of cool, and it sounds great!

George Oldziey's Behemoth theme from "Wing Commander III - Heart of the Tiger", performed by a virtual orchestra in MIDIS2Jam2 using Patch 93's SC-55 soundfont.

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Sylvester found this very fun Wing Commander-adjacent video to share. DCSWorld PL created a impressive high fidelity version of the Strike Commander introduction in the Digital Combat Simulator engine. It's super sharp and features an authentic reproduction of things like the game's iconic F-16s. Strike Commander has many diehard fans out there and it's cool to see what they're churning out almost thirty years later!

Waiting hopelessly for the remake or sequel of one of the most beloved games - STRIKE COMMANDER - I decided to start by myself. Here it is the intro from the original version (floppy disk, not CD), recreated to the letter in DCS World.

I made skins for Wildcats squadron based on Sudden Death magazine included in the big box and added some from myself.

The clip is one to one recreation of the original scenes using Mission Editor in DCS World. The music and sound effects are from Strike

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AD reports that GalaxyCon is hosting another virtual autograph event with a Wing Commander star! Back in 2021, they had an arrangement with Freddie Prinze Jr that included the option to buy autographed WC posters. A similar deal is now running for Matthew Lillard. This time the the artwork has been updated: the Blair offer used the newer blue-tinted "DVD reprint" art while this is the original theatrical poster for Maniac. There are several options ranging from an 8x10" photo for $85, 11x17" mini posters for $100 or custom items that you send for $95-115. Send Ins need to be figured out by March 5, but you have until March 16 to order one of their WC photos or posters. This is a very cool opportunity for autograph collectors!

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Princess Aisling Duval has assumed oversight of the Empire's contributions to the tri-superpower agency Aegis.
She discussed her new role during an interview with The Imperial Herald:
"Loathe though I was to defy the Emperor's decree, every instinct told me that the Aegis initiative can develop methods of protecting the Empire from enormous losses in this war. I'm grateful that Arissa recognised the value of my plea."
"I've been liaising with Professor Alba Tesreau, as well as Dr Fonseca, Vice Admiral Anderson and the rest of my team. Our challenge is to make the most of the Imperial resources allocated to Aegis."
"It's true that I was critical of Aegis's effectiveness in the past, but I've always believed that cooperation with other superpowers can bring mutual benefits. The mass slaughter inflicted by the Thargoids eclipses the NMLA's atrocities – a challenge we faced together. We must

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Here’s a fun new (to me) type of video! I’m familiar with people making vids about the hauls and treasures that they discover at stores, including retro game retailers. Another emerging scene is where the store owners themselves are growing their YouTube/Twitch/social media presence with videos that showcase impressive or exotic customer trade-ins. Obviously this is a type of commercial advertisement since these go right on to being sold, but it’s pretty cool to see the variety of items that they run across. This particular clip has everything from 8 bit NES games to relatively new Xbox One titles, plus hardware. And the person here absolutely gushes about Wing Commander 3 and 4 for the PlayStation. You can catch that bit just about a minute and twenty seconds in.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Populated systems in the Witch Head Nebula have been overrun by Thargoid fleets, resulting in widespread chaos.
Thargoid vessels have directly targeted starports and planetary bases, leaving tens of thousands of casualties. With the nebula located hundreds of light years from the core systems, rescue services are struggling to aid the fleeing survivors.
Vox Galactica published a fragmented message transmitted by the engineer Chloe Sedesi:
"…emergency SOS from the Shenve system. The Thargoids… full-scale invasion. They've hit us hard. The… evacuated my team and abandoned Cinder Dock. We're trying to get clear from… swarms of them, in every direction we turn. If anyone's receiving this, we're…"
Captain Warren Lamar, head of security for the Alliance Expeditionary Pact, made this statement:
"In recent years we've fought off several Thargoid strikes, but the sheer scale

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Happy Valentine's Day, Wingnuts! Love is in the air, and so are the Kilrathi! Whether you're spending this special day with your sweetheart or flying solo, we've got some romantic treats for you.

First, check out this passionate animation that LOAF extracted from Privateer, featuring a Gemini Sector couple in a tender embrace. We love how they captured the chemistry between these two star-crossed lovers.

Here's a tiny kiss for Valentine's Day! These lovers can show up in the background of the bar on New Detroit in Privateer.

Second, we've got the fabulous return of the Love Arrow! We hope you enjoy this famous icon and have a wonderful Valentine's Day. Remember, the Heart of the Tiger is always with you!

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Last fall we introduced a creative new project where EmuMusicFan began sketching out Freedom Flight's interrogation of Ralgha nar Hhallas in comic book form. We only had one page to go off then, but now Emu has released an additional six. It's enough to set up a pretty suspenseful scene! Check them out below and give you feedback to Emu at the CIC Forums.

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Today we've got a look back at Ascii Sector. The project began in the 2000s as a novel ASCII art take on Wing Commander Privateer. If you've been following us for a long time, you'll recall that the project actually won Fan Project of the Year for 2008. However, a few years later, the project removed "Privateer" from the name and started to change up the internal assets to avoid a sense of direct copyright infringement/overlap. I would have argued that there was no practical concern, since the project was fairly low-key and EA has a long history of not worrying about fan projects and mods, but I get it. And then we lost track of things for the past decade!

Fast forward today, and I see that development continued into 2016. Unfortunately, the game's website and associated materials appear to have gone offline in 2022, but you can still find a copy and download the latest version via archive.org.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The anti-xeno agency Aegis has been officially reformed by the Alliance, Empire and Federation.
Aegis was initially founded in 3303 to centralise research into the Thargoids, as well as coordinate defence and rescue operations. It was disbanded in 3308 following accusations of incompetence in the wake of the Alexandria disaster and the subsequent findings of the Baumann Report. The recent escalation of the Thargoid War and calls for renewed collaboration between the superpowers have led to a reversal of that decision.
Professor Alba Tesreau will serve as the head of the revived organisation. She provided details at a press conference:
"Aegis remains humanity's best hope of ending this calamitous war with the Thargoids. Its priority is to better understand the alien species through scientific research, and to utilise those findings to improve our defensive and weapon capabilities."
"Each

Quote from Freelancer News-Bot

We celebrate the 20th anniversary of Freelancer, from 24th of FEB until 05th of MAR there will be events hosted by different mods and projects every day. every event will also be streamed on twitch or youtube. Feel free to join us! Powered by The Starport and the Freelancer Galactic Community Discord

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Here's a video of the vintage Amiga ProTracker software running a Wing Commander module. I'm not super familiar with this program myself, but it's got great WC music and some cool '90s aesthetic going on, so I'm running with it. Have a great weekend and enjoy!

Protracker Modul (mod)
Creator: Mark Knight
Titel: Wing Commander
Year: 1990

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If you want to try out the new renderer for Freelancer you can do it now during our beta test. Also this helps us finding remaining issues.

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This evening we've got a video from Linus Tech Tips about the reasons why you might emulate old hardware compared with building up a a classic PC of your own. There are pros and cons each way, and it's a good discussion about some of the many challenges than can go into getting vintage games running. I'm not a fan of these goofy thumbnails, but it's a charming video. It's really nice to see someone navigate those retro Windows 95 and DOS interfaces. Wing Commander appears at the 13:55 point in a brief anecdote about how some games could run too fast on newer hardware. It's kind of funny/amazing that that's an obscure enough bit of information in 2023 that it's worth calling out!

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Here's one you might never notice: Privateer has four different gameflow backgrounds for the ship dealers! New Constantinople (stripe), Oxford (wood floor), New Detroit (darker wall) and everything else!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

President Zachary Hudson and Shadow President Felicia Winters have united behind Federal backing for the reformation of Aegis.
Congress held an emergency debate after the Alliance and Empire agreed to support an official tri-superpower initiative against the Thargoids. A majority of votes from Republican, Liberal and independent representatives approved the provision of ships, personnel and materials from the Federation.
President Hudson delivered a short address to mark the occasion:
"The intensified Thargoid attacks against the core systems demand a proportionate response. We recognise that Salvation was directly responsible for many of the tragic events that Aegis was blamed for. The Federation has an opportunity to correct that misjudgement and do our part to defeat a common adversary."
Congressman Tom Gillespie has volunteered to coordinate the Federation's involvement with any unified