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The autumn sale may be a distant memory, but GOG is back with more discounted Wing Commander! To celebrate the one year anniversary of their preservation program, Wing Commanders 1-3, Privateer and Privateer 2 are discounted by 50% for the next few days. Additionally, in order to not leave the rest of the series out, Academy, Armada, WC4 and Prophecy are also discounted in half as part of a new fast-paced promo. Happy Wing Commandeering!
Nov
This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut event happening on Discord this morning! Join us at noon EST/9 AM PST for a fun filled morning of television... that all connect to Wing Commander somehow! This time around we've got a classic documentary about the Cold War AND the first arc of Exosquad, the 1993 animated series that brought together the creative team that would go on to make Wing Commander Academy. You can find details on the shows included as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. Be sure to download the episodes so they're ready to play with the group!
Nov
There's no denying that Casablanca is an all time classic film! It's timeless, snappy and clever with some of the greatest performances ever put to film. It's also unfortunately more timely than ever today in a world that's once again figuring out how to fight fascists.
The Wing Commander connection was pretty easy this time around: here's Casablanca's legendary final line compared to Minx's in Special Operations 2!
Sully is shocked to find out that movie club is going on in here.
Nov
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 Contact (1997) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start at 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!
And don't forget our fourth Wing Commander Cartoon party is early tomorrow!
Nov
…We've finished a long-awaited addition to the WCPedia: a complete collection of screenshots showing all 233 Privateer 2: The Darkening News Bulletins! We've also included game-extracted text, scans from the official guide and new info and nav boxes to make exploring them much easier. Privateer 2 players may remember the bulletins as the system by which the game offers big changes to commodity prices. One is selected each time you land and available in the Booth. Some of them are tabloid articles, some are advertisements and some mark changes to pricing because of current events (a flood might reduce the price of water on a certain planet and so on). Many people don't pay attention to the text in Privateer 2 and I think that's a mistake: the game's designers wrote a fat novel worth of text for the Booth and the various missions and it expands the Tri-System and the Wing Commander universe in so many
Nov
…*Pilots' Federation Alert*
The Pilots' Federation has confirmed that members are now authorised to enter the HIP 87621 system, following months of speculation and political wrangling.
This unprecedented decision grants exclusive access to licensed Commanders, with civilian, corporate and government organisations still restricted from entering the system.
October Consortium officials explained apparent inconsistencies between previously available system data and actual astrometric data as "spoofing", citing "security and scientific integrity" as major reasons. They have also confirmed placing a permanent exclusion on fleet carriers entering the system under the same basis.
Scientists believe the plant's unusual biological markers may explain the long-range scan anomalies that first drew attention to the system.
Commanders who have already ventured into HIP 87621 report the discovery of an
Nov
…Here's a fun discovery: a game preservation group has posted a prototype copy of Wing Commander Prophecy on the Internet Archive! It includes all three discs complete with high resolution scans. They have a great writeup of what's included in the readme with details which you can find below. Since this looks to be a review copy sent out only a week before the game was finished it's likely not too different from the final release. But when it comes to studying this kind of history... every bit helps! (Please laugh.) We've mirrored a copy here.
=========================== Wing Commander: Prophecy ===========================
-------------------------- (1997-12-02 PC prototype) ---------------------------
Dumped By: Cut Into Fourteen Pieces
Released By: CVLT OF OSIRIS
CVLT OF OSIRIS presents a prototype of Wing Commander: Prophecy for the PC
Nov
…Eddie Rickenharp is mini-mono artist who has attained megastar status and is best known for repopularizing his genre of music. In 2669, Rickenharp agreed to perform for Confederation forces on Bistango X in a spectacular concert amidst the planet's ancient art treasures. The Kilrathi launched a surprise assault on the planet during the concert which killed thousands and left the artwork in ruins. Rickenharp was badly wounded in the attack and left in critical condition.
--
Last time we looked at tHE lOVE aNIMALS, a band introduced in Wing Commander III that doing a TCSO-style performance for the troops. But Wing Commander III actually introduces a second artist with the same setup: "megastar" Eddie Rickenharp. He also has a fictional-but-familiar-seeming genre, "mini mono" and you get the sense that he's some kind of Steven Tyler-style aging superstar in 2669. Rickenharp appears in two of the TCN
Nov
…Brewer Corporation has labelled the withdrawal of its Trailblazer megaship fleet as a 'vote of confidence' in the self-sustainability of thousands of new colonies.
The Trailblazer vessels were originally deployed to provide logistical support and essential resources to independent colonisation initiatives at the edge of inhabited space and are now being refit for deployment for other purposes.
"The success of the Trailblazer fleet will leave its mark in the history books of human colonisation," Mark Rennik, Chief Operating Officer for Brewer Corporation commented.
"And now, once the crews have taken a well-deserved rest and the internals are refit, they will continue to serve the Brewer Corporation in other duties."
To reinforce the message, Rennik also announced the availability of the newly commissioned Dodec starports for colonisation efforts, which can be built at any available Tier 3 port
Nov
…
This is the kind of surprise we like: gr1mre4per is back with a brand new version of Prophecy Unlimited, the first release since 2019! The past five or six years did kind of run together! Prophecy Unlimited and its assosciated OpenGL patch form the framework for a lot of the modern enhancements to Wing Commander Prophecy... so it's great to see development continue! You can download a copy of Prophecy Unlimited version 6.1 here. The patch notes follow:
### WCPUNL Beta 6.1
Support for both CD and GoG installations using the prophecy.exe supplied in this package. A CD check is done, if no CD is found a local file check is performed. If no local files found, Change CD screen will appear.
### WCPUNL Beta 6.0
Fixed memory leak in the new Movie Player Turret barrel fire respects wcpunl.ini setting again File loading priority changed so directory has priority over tree file (no need to patch data.tre anymore)
Nov
…It's time for another Saturday Wing Commander cartoon marathon… with real cartoons, this time! These marathons, currently scheduled monthly, celebrate Wing Commander-related media that doesn't quite fit with the Friday night movie club. This Saturday, November 15, we'll be bringing you another themed morning of '90s media and great Wing Commander conversation. This time we'll be taking a look at the management of the real life Cold War… and then the start of a pretty compelling sci fi version!
Pandora's Box, Episode 2: To the Brink of Eternity (1992): Pandora's Box is a 1992 BBC series by documentarian Adam Curtis which looked at various sociopolitical issues facing the world at the time (most of which are still relevant today). The second episode, To the Brink of Eternity, looks at how the United States has managed nuclear security through the Cold War. It's a fascinating show but we're watching
Nov
…
Last week we kicked off the second year of the Wing Commander movie club with an all time classic movie, Casablanca. And this week we've got another one that's a little closer to home: Robert Zemeckis' Contact (1997). It's a stunning adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel about a present-day first contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
Contact came after almost all of the main line Wing Commander games, so you know this is most likely to relate to the 1999 movie. Indeed, this is another case where Chris Roberts borrowed some of Alan Silvestri for the temp track to the Wing Commander movie. Specifically, a track called Small Moves was used over Maniac and Rosie's postcoital moment.
Of course, Wing Commander has a couple of disastrous first contact stories that we'll take a look at, too… stay tuned for the after action report next week!
Where can I
Nov
Need a Wing Commander Academy-themed Twitch stream overlay? Who doesn't! Luckily, Reddit user Ford Crown Vic Koth has posted exactly that! Be sure and let us know if you're ever streaming Wing Commander; we're happy to spread the word!
Nov
It seems like Bethesda's Starfield is one of those games that comes off as a little bland… until it gets into the hands of the right person. Case in point: a YouTuber named Cornelius has recreated the Wing Commander movie's CF-117b Rapier in the game… and they've made an hour long video about the process! The end result is pretty shocking and the video shows how carefully researched the whole thing was (down to images of the Confederation Handbook!). If you're interested in Starfield or just insanely cool fan work, this one's for you:
Nov
…The Wing Commander movie club's consensus is that The Right Stuff has the right stuff. It's a movie that tells both a fascinating story and provides a unique look at the psychology behind some of our heroes (we all agreed that we did NOT have what it takes to ride rockets). Despite the three plus hour run time, The Right Stuff remains snappy and modern. It grabs you from the start and despite the complete second act shift in the narrative it feels cohesive and like everything matters. The only aspect that really sticks out as odd today is the flashes of then-modern humor that punctuate it. This was surely something that in the 80s served to distinguish it from big, slow epics but it feels somewhat dated today. But nowhere near enough to drag down this excellent film!
We talked about the literal reference to Casey having 'the right stuff' in the intro but the character you really come away from the
Nov
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 Casablanca (1942) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start at 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!
Nov
…*Pilots' Federation Alert*
The Pilots' Federation has confirmed that licensed Commanders will be granted access to the HIP 87621 system by October Consortium.
The unexpected move has followed weeks of speculation surrounding HIP 87621, with growing interest from all three superpowers piling pressure on the megacorp. A spokesperson from within the Pilots' Federation stated:
"The continued delay from October Consortium to relinquish permit control has only created further tension between political and scientific communities. To assuage concerns over the type of research taking place in HIP 87621, we have been invited to grant access to the system to licensed Pilots' Federation members."
However, Lexi October, head of the October Consortium, was less cordial in her statement to Vox Galactica:
"We have done nothing but preserve our discovery within HIP 87621 for security and scientific purposes.
Nov
…
This is the first in a series of irregular updates covering the musical artists of the 27th and 28th centuries. Wing Commander has surprisingly detailed backstories for several different groups despite the fact that we never actually got to hear any of their music! In each update we'll first offer the in-universe capsule biography and then share all the sources behind it.
tHE lOVE aNIMALS (sometimes stylzed as tHE lOVEaNIMALS and The LoveAnimals) are a retro-folk technotronic female trio that became popular in the late 2650s. The group was formed by guitarist Uil Yth, an enigmatic figure whose philosophy opposed violence in any form and referred to their output their "musical vision". Their music was said to have a "smooth, synthetic sound". The performers played modern instruments but dressed in distinct retro clothing.
In 2669, tHE lOVE aNIMALS released "let sleeping breezes lie," a record that would
Nov
…It looks like No Man Sky's free capital ship designing expansion is a hit! Last month we shared some shots of corvettes created by Shaggy and now he has another shot that shows off the interior of his Venture:
Here's a shot of the galley to the bridge on the Venture as well as a shot of it parked above CNS Alexandria, my floating base on my home planet. I have a shot of the cargo bay but it's not that interesting. The Venture is also a very narrow ship, compared to the Kamrani, so there wasn't a lot of space to work with room wise.Meanwhile, a BlueSky user named Redalgo has been recreating an entire fleet of ships! Starting with the Thunderbolt VII (skeet
Recently had some fun piecing together a corvette in homage to the Thunderbolt VII.
And now after some polishing and work on the nose...
Next up in No Man's Sky is an attempt at recreating the Kilrathi Paktahn, specifically the
Nov
…Brewer Corporation has announced plans to reassign its Trailblazer megaship fleet, citing the self-sufficiency of newly established colonies.
The Trailblazer vessels were deployed to provide logistical support and essential resources to independent colonisation initiatives at the edge of inhabited space. Their presence has been credited with accelerating the construction of ports and surface settlements throughout the past year.
Mark Rennik, Chief Operating Officer for Brewer Corporation, issued a statement of commendation:
"What began as an ambitious expansion effort has grown into a thriving network of independent colonies. The success of these initiatives proves that humanity's frontier is now strong enough to stand on its own."
"With these colonies self-sustaining and prospering, the Trailblazer fleet's mission is complete. Markets will close initially as we funnel Brewer Corporation
