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The long awaited Artemis mission has finally lifted off! If you were like all of us in #Wingnut, you were glued to your screens to watch the historic event. But since everything went down at nearly 2 am US Eastern time, here's a quick recap video if you haven't had the pleasure of watching the Space Launch System rocket launch. This marks the beginning of a 26 day mission to reach and circle the moon. Crewed missions will follow, and with steady progress, this could be a big step towards reaching Mars. Congrats to all of the many people who helped make this possible!

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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.

Today's polaroid led us to several interesting stories. Pictured here as "Confed Cap #3" is actor Charles "Chip" Esten. Since appearing as a featured extra in Wing Commander IV, Esten has gone on to a considerable amount of success including appearing as a series regular on ABC drama Nashville, playing Josh Porter on The Office and on multiple iterations of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Mr. Esten is very active today and even retweeted our request to help identify his polaroid!

The polaroid gives you a good look at a Terran Confederation Navy jacket complete with a name and rank that aren't visible on screen (JARVIS and Lieutenant Commander, respectively). Wing Commander Prophecy would later establish a different canonical rank for Lieutenant Commander (three

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Inspired by Nightball's Hellcat model, L.I.F. is back with a neat plan to upgrade his Freelancer/Wing Commander conversion mod. His original program allows you to play through the regular Freelancer campaign, but with familiar WC ships! Now he's looking at addressing the open ended portion of the game. Some of the new features are described below.

I've gone back to the mod and am adding some further features. The release being targeted is an open-ended sandbox, so without the original game's campaign. I've added a small chance for military-grade equipment to drop from destroyed military fighters, with the understanding that the player will not be allowed to buy them in any circumstance whatsoever, thus providing a long-term end-game goal rather than quickly becoming utterly overpowered.

The other thing I am working on right now is capital ship patrols: destroyers and corvettes that will patrol core

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Nightball06 has finally accomplished the lengthy mission to model his Hellcat fighter. As you might recall, he previously made an intricately detailed two dimensional sketch of the medium fighter from Wing Commander 3. It took him a while to find a partner with which to add the extra dimension, but he did manage to connect with such an artist and the results are below. The first image shows the new model, and the second is his original sketch (and Klavs' Wildcat, which was also an inspiration). Hit the discuss link to let him know what you think!

IT IS DONE!!! Ladies and gentlemen - May I present you:

The F-86E "Hellcat V refit". With the help of a very talented 3D-artist from Israel called "lexa6ix" I was able to finalize my vision.

It was a blast to work with him - especially because I was able to present and discuss my ideas, which he then knew how to make real. And because of that - I was even

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The announcement that the rogue signal sources heading towards the core systems are Thargoid in origin has caused unease within the general public.
Protests in systems on the edges of human space have taken place, demanding assurances from local governments about their safety. The failure to establish a collective human fleet to counter Thargoid incursions has left many concerned about what the future may hold.
Casey Kilpatrick provided this report from Castellan Station in Lave:
"Colleagues across multiple systems have confirmed that the impending arrival of the rogue signal sources – termed 'stargoids' by some in network media – has led to a shared sense of anxiety. ICE networks are seeing high interest in topics related to Thargoids, with negative sentiment aimed at politicians and military figures seen as responsible for the Proteus Wave event which perhaps attracted the anomalies.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The human colonists in the Coalsack Nebula has raised the alarm after Thargoid forces appeared several systems.
Following recent attacks on systems and vessels in the California Nebula, it appears that the Thargoids have again sought to occupy systems where barnacle fields are present on planet surfaces.
Councillor Lewis Laychurch, representing the Alliance Expeditionary Pact in HIP 62154, provided the following to the Alliance Tribune:
"Our security craft regularly patrol between the populated systems in this region. We had the first reports of nonhuman signals this morning. Obviously we've seen Thargoid activity in the Coalsack Nebula several times before, but this time was different. It's not an attack as much as a presence."
"We witnessed a huge upsurge in these signals in multiple systems. Over a couple of hours, it felt like Thargoid activity was visible on scanners wherever our ships

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

A claim that the rogue signal sources form part of a potential Thargoid offensive has been disputed by many in the pro-peace movement.
A joint statement by respected xenologists Professor Alba Tesreau, Professor Ishmael Palin and Ram Tah concluded that the approaching anomalies are a reaction to events in HIP 22460, and may have dire consequences for humanity. The eight signal sources are projected to arrive in the core systems within weeks.
Advocates for the Thargoid Advocacy Project and similar xeno-peace groups have rejected the idea that increased hostilities with the Thargoids is inevitable. As community liaison Bernadette Wells said on the Joy Senne ICE-cast:
"Despite this ominous claim from three respected scientists, they have offered no hard evidence to support the assumption that the anomalies are hostile. I'm sorry, I know Seo Jin-ae has suffered enormously as part of Salvation's

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Darkmage DMJC has some great news for WC4 fans on Linux. After years of steady progress, he reports that the latest build of Wine successfully runs GOG's DVD version of the game. There's a particular checkbox in the winecfg file that you need to make sure is unmarked, but after that, it should be fairly smooth sailing. As with anything like this, there's always the potential for unique hardware/software configurations to produce new hiccups, so hit up the CIC Forums or Discord if you encounter issues!

Wing Commander IV DVD edition works on Linux! Set this in winecfg. If that box is ticked it fails. Also run regsvr32 Mpeg2DecFilter.ax and regsvr32 ac3filter.ax to make sure the codecs are installed.

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Zounds: the sketchy Chandrilan banker on the latest Andor is played by Richard Dillane... who was Hunter in Wing Commander! I did not notice this at all, credit to AD!

Let's think through other Wing Commander movie veterans in Star Wars... Hugh Quarshie was Mr. Obutu and Naboo's Captain Panaka in The Phantom Menace! 1999 was a BIG year for Quarshieheads.

Freddie Prinze Jr. went on to voice Jedi Knight Kanan on Star Wars Rebels! Which is the reverse of how that happened before.

In the opposite direction, Mark Hamill voiced Merlin (the Rapier's bitchin' betty) in Wing Commander and... I feel like I don't have to explain who Luke Skywalker is.

Cyril Nri is Pegasus' Security Officer in Wing Commander and he's credited as a First Order Officer in The Rise of Skywalker. I think that's him at the meeting where Kylo Ren confronts the First Order leadership. (RIP Boolio)

The internet tells me that the late, great

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Today we've got a really awesome physical Wing Commander model that popped up on YouTube. capi spotted the Tarsus from Privateer in an episode of Me, Myself and Die! The ship becomes the centerpiece of a game of Five Parsecs From Home. We see the host, Trevor Devall, play around the table and get really into the action. The game itself looks cool, but I can't get enough of that gorgeous ship! capi asked about its origin, and apparently a viewer of the show sent it in previously. What an awesome find!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
A version of the FSS scanning software used to track the Thargoid anomalies has been made available to the Pilots' Federation.
Commanders should experience reduced interference when using the full spectrum system (FSS) scanner to focus on the anomalies. The team leading the development of the software, however, warned that the resultant clarity has done little to ease the concerns of Professor Palin, Ram Tah and other leading scientists.
Lori Jameson, an engineer contributing to the FSS scanner's software calibration, commented:
"We're pleased with the update and are happy to share it with Commanders, who have provided much of the data used by the institutions researching the rogue signal sources. Representatives of Canonn Interstellar Research Group, Orion University and Universal Cartographics have also helped greatly. I just wish the results generated a more

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This update is part of a series covering Wing Commander content from Computer Game Review magazine. You can find the introductory post here. This update covers the magazine's reviews of Wing Commander games from 1991 to 1996 which were, by and large, very positive! It's a fascinating leap back in time...

October 1991 - Wing Commander IV

August 1992 - Special Operations 2

October 1993 - Wing Commander Academy

December 1993 - Wing Commander Privateer

December 1994 - Wing Commander Armada

February 1995 - Wing Commander IV

May 1996 - Diamond Multimedia Kit (with Wing Commander II)

May 1996 - Wing Commander IV

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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The recent Azimuth Biotech initiative to expand its operation assets has been described as a 'partial success'.
A primary goal of obtaining sufficient resources to establish a new anti-xeno megaship has been met, Azimuth CEO Torben Rademaker announced. The megaship is expected to be operational within the next few weeks.
Opponents of the weapons research corporation, seeking to disrupt the campaign, mobilised forces to engage Azimuth security vessels. While unable to prevent sufficient deliveries from reaching the Musashi, it is thought these pilots inflicted significant losses on the Azimuth fleet.
"We are delighted with the support shown to Azimuth Biotech by independent pilots, and look to the future with optimism," said Rademaker. "We will soon deploy a new AX megaship to lead our mobile operations. Setbacks inflicted by anarchic opponents of progress have delayed our plans to establish

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Professor Alba Tesreau, Professor Ishmael Palin and Ram Tah have released a joint statement regarding the alien sound heard at HIP 22460.
"There has been much speculation about the mysterious noise that was recorded following the Battle of HIP 22460, which is clearly of Thargoid origin. Thanks to the help of Seo Jin-ae, formerly known as Subject D-2, we have started to comprehend some of its meaning."
"What was audible to humans was only part of a complex multi-frequency transmission, amplified by the energy surging through the Thargoid surface site which housed the Proteus Wave weapon. Its specifics remain indecipherable for the moment, but certain aspects were isolated with the aid of Ms Seo, whose unique neural implants were designed to interface with Thargoid technology."
"She believes there is a 'call and response' element, as if the signal was a reply to the Thargoid forces in HIP

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The WC4 Remastered team has a new article on their journey to improve in-flight comms. The videos that come across your VDU in flight are far smaller and more compressed than the game's regular FMV, so getting these tiny clips to look good is an extra challenge. So, ODVS has incorporated several technologies to try to bring them up to modern standards. Check out the new video below to see how they look!

A future release of the project's demo will share these in action. In the mean time, if anyone is an expert at extracting Playstation videos and would like to contribute to research in this area, let them know!

Aside from the miniscule resolution of the source material, another major problem is compression. In order to fit all those thousands of frames onto the game’s CD-ROMs, they were quite heavily compressed using mid-90s techniques. The unfortunate side-effect for us is that they’re blocky

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Computer Game Review (later Computer Game Review and 16-Bit Entertainment and then Computer Game Review and CD-ROM Entertainment) was an American gaming magazine published from 1991 to 1996, covering much of Wing Commander's heyday. A sister magazine to the better-known console-focused Electronic Gaming Monthly, CGR was on friendly terms with Origin Systems and their editorial content frequently defended their high system requirements and delayed games. The Internet Archive has recently added almost the entire run... and we've combed through it for Wing Commander content! For those curious: the missing issues are 11/91, 12/91, 2/93, 4/92, 2/93 and 4/93 if anyone has copies in their collection!

What follows are Computer Game Review's 'previews' of Wing Commander games. These articles were typically the result of a reporter visit or a press junket covering a game in development. As Origin and the games

Quote from No Man

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone playing the Waypoint Update, especially those taking the time to report any issues they encounter via Zendesk or console crash reporting.

We are listening closely to your feedback, and have identified and resolved a number of issues. These fixes are included in patch 4.06, which will be live on all platforms soon.

Bug fixes

• Story summaries for the various NPC base specialists have been added to the Collected Knowledge page of the information portal.
• Plaque interactions will no longer loop back to the first piece of history for that planet’s race after completing every interaction.
• Abandoned building interactions will no longer loop back to the beginning of the first story after completing every interaction.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some journey milestone guidance missions to become stuck in a loop.

Players joining a friend’s game directly from the frontend but without a valid

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the first post in the series' introduction here.

Our next continuity polaroid is a familiar face: it's Bob-O-Matte! Eagle-eyed Wing Commander players will recall that Bob-O-Matte is one of the three Border Worlds pilots who is ambushed and destroyed in the cutscene that opens the Peleus 'jammer' series of missions. Despite his apparent death at the hands of a Confederation Excalibur, Bob-O-Matte appears again in Wing Commander Prophecy reading a tarot deck in one of the game's most unusual transitions. Bob-O-Matte's flying scene takes place in the game's Banshee cockpit set which is a simple triangular backdrop (shots of the instrumentation are reused from the more elaborate Lance cockpit set). As you can see in the photograph, only the top portion of the flight suit was necessary since the shot

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Dalton Chase, the former governor of Andavandul 1, has become a Federal congressman following victory in the recent special election.
Despite his relative youth and inexperience, many voters within the congressional district were influenced by Chase's charm and positive campaign message. His enthusiasm for opening diplomatic relations with the Thargoids resonated with younger voters. The Liberal Party also ran a creative PR campaign across social channels, which was amplified by many counter-cultural ICE-casters.
After formally swearing in and taking his oath of office, Congressman Chase proclaimed:
"I'm conscious that some view me as unorthodox or contrarian, perhaps even 'soft on Thargoids'. But I take the security of the Federation as seriously as any of my honourable colleagues. Achieving peace with another species, and thereby saving the lives of countless Federal citizens, would be

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Today we have a beautiful new take on the Wing Commander title theme fanfare. Grazia Pizzuto is on the piano and she's accompanied by Filippo Tramontana with a French horn. I love how well they nailed the original soundtrack with just these two instruments. It's a wonderful rendition that you need to give a listen to! You can find more of her video game musical takes here.