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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

As the first week of the Alliance Festival of Culture draws to a close, Lave residents have shared mixed feelings about the decision to stage the opening ceremony in their home system.

"Clearly this was a political gesture from Edmund Mahon," said Grady Chen, an independent journalist speaking at Lave Station. "An independent faction rules Lave now. There was military conflict here just last year. Yet we have Alliance leaders trying to garner support despite losing control of the system. It's blatant propaganda."

Sarai Messemer, a financial consultant, offered a different opinion when interviewed in The Orange Sidewinder. "Lave has been an Alliance system for decades. We lived by the Alliance's ethos for a couple of generations, y'know? Sure, we've got Lave Radio in control of the system now but that doesn't change who we are, or what makes us Lavians."

A spokesperson for Lave Radio, Dr Allen

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

LOAF found a great mention from a game design document for the original Wing Commander a while back. It includes a previously unspecified last name for Shotglass. He is listed as Major Sam Walker (retired). Previous speculation had guessed his last name could be Siegler after mention of his cousin in The Secret Missions. As interesting as this is, it's not necessarily the final official word since Colonel Halcyon's name is listed as Walter rather than Peter. And although not new information at this point, the references to Dart and Joker (who later became Hunter and Maniac) are fun inclusions as well. Anyhow, for anyone out there writing Shotglass fan fiction or for folks involved in the creation of a future WC product, keep "Walker" in mind!

Another fascinating discovery for WC fans: Shotglass' last name!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here’s the Union of Border Worlds’ Avenger torpedo bomber! The Avenger was introduced in Wing Commander IV as a flyable ship.

The Avenger was named in honor of the TBF Avenger, also a carrier-based torpedo plan. In lore it was said to have been built by Saab Engineering, a nod to Origin 3D artist Pauline Saab.

The Avenger made one more appearance in the Wing Commander canon: a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo as a renegade shuttle in the second episode of Academy. You can see the scale is way off: compare the 33-meter Avenger to what should be 28-meter Dralthi parked nearby!

Here’s the original concept sketch for Wing Commander IV!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's another video that I wasn't at all expecting but am very happy to see. ODVS has further branched out from the core WC FMV games and has created an impressive 4K 60 FPS enhancement to the cutscenes included with Freelancer. There aren't very many, which helped make the work pretty manageable. All of the prerendered portions look fantastic. The engine-rendered bits show the limitation of the models used at the time, but everything still gets a very nice upgrade here.

Freelancer was made by Chris Roberts and a number of Wing Commander vets out of Digital Anvil. Cruising around its open Sirius Sector sandbox was a popular pastime for quite a few Wingnuts through the mid 2000s. Maximize your window and make sure the 4K stream is selected to see the full effect below!

Freelancer: not directly Wing Commander-related, but it is a Chris Roberts game... so maybe a Wing Commander cousin?

Anyway, I was

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

George Sanger, aka The Fat Man, has just announced the immediate release of his Wing Commander I Complete Original Soundtrack: "MT-32 Archival Edition." Way back in 2007, George put out a fantastic album of WC1 music known as Wing One, and it's been on our highly recommended list ever since. This new edition scrubs Fat's archives for a complete reckoning of all the music in the game. Today's release clocks in with 55 tracks and 85 minutes of audio - compared to 27 tracks and 34 minutes in the original release fifteen years ago.

You can stream the entire album below or listen to all of the individual tracks at the publisher Xeen's YouTube Channel. I'm listening right now and it's wonderful! You can also buy a digital copy for $10 at Bandcamp to get access to high quality downloadable files - or just thank the team for their continuing commitment to Wing Commander! When you check out, there's a

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Alliance, Empire and Federation, have agreed to close down the Affiliated Counter-Terrorism unit.
A joint statement from all three superpowers stated: "ACT's primary mission to locate and destroy the Neo-Marlinist Liberation Army has been successfully accomplished."
ACT was formed in March 3307 following the Nine Martyrs attacks, when the NMLA simultaneously bombed multiple starports. The independent taskforce rapidly took the lead in investigating the terrorists, calling upon the resources of many agencies, specialists and freelance pilots.
The co-leaders of ACT have now returned to their respective security services. Captain Saskia Landau was personally awarded the Achenar Service Cross by Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval, in recognition of her key role in identifying the Lords of Restoration. Landau has now accepted overall command of Imperial Intelligence, reporting directly to the

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's the nav map from the original Wing Commander. That "Sector: Vega XR-231.3" is my favorite kind of texture... you know what the Vega Sector is and you assume the designation makes sense to the character; the world is implied to have history and rules beyond what you see.

Unfortunately, the mission disks let us down by not changing it (they're set in the Deneb and Antares sectors, respectively). The name is stored in WC.EXE so it couldn't easily be changed for Thor's Hammer... while Secret Missions 2 is probably a case of just forgetting about it.

HOWEVER! We have to again praise the Mindscape team that did the SNES ports... they thought to swap it to XR-41.8 for The Secret Missions. Which is not only right, it continues the implication that there's some sector classification system we don't understand.

The folks adapting Super Wing Commander, on the other hand, solved the problem the opposite way:

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Klavs has a few new updates to his impressive Sabre design. The center aft fuselage has been streamlined with sleeker curves for a sharper look. The results speak for themselves! It's really nice to have a high quality model like this where even the turret guns and exquisitely modeled.

I purposefully made the turret smaller/remote operated, but it's still there. The Sabre just seems like such a hotrod to me, it's a waste to haul around all that badonkadonk. Second pilot operating the turret remotely makes more sense, or even the primary pilot while the secondary pilot handles the torpedo lock.

Still, it's big enough back there you could imagine a gunner being back there if you really wanted to!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a little detail you might miss in Wing Commander IV: Colonel Blair and Seether have the same three ribbons on their uniform but they wear them in reverse order!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a neat translation of the Privateer 2 cheats that LOAF found in a Chinese game guide. Did you know that Privateer 2 even had cheats? Here's what each of them do. To enter the codes, open the navigation screen by pressing Alt-N. Then press F and type one of the following. Press enter to initiate:

• NO TALENT (Invincibility)
• REP ME UP (Repairs armor and shields)
• NAPALM (Unlimited nukes)
• PETY PETY (Full afterburners)
• CHILL OUT (Lasers produce less heat)

Privateer 2 cheats from a Chinese game book!

You can find more codes for Wing Commander games here!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Sprite sheets for explosions in Origin FX’s Armageddon mode (Left) versus Privateer (Right). I had not realized FX shipped nine months before Priv! You can see a few frames were cut in that time:

Armageddon is an Origin FX movie which displays a variety of explosions and damage effects on the desktop. There are six types of explosions, two of which are taken from Wing Commander Privateer. Three sound effects can play. The movie is named after the armageddon spell from the Ultima series.

"Be careful — if you stop typing for long, there could be trouble brewing. It’s a terrorist attack of the software kind . . . explosions everywhere, blowing away your application and clearing the screen with the violent beauty of detonation after detonation. Whether they leave pitch black craters, smoke or no trace at all is your own decision to make from the safety of your console."

Here are the other four explosions in

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Mac is on a roll with fabulous Wing Commander renders this month, and his latest is a spectacular Super Ferret as originally modeled by Klavs. His new scene is vertically oriented with a lot of hard angles and implied speed. There's also some great interplay between the engine flare, background nebula gases and other light sources. The new image is below, and you can see it assembled with two of his similar pieces as well!

Ferret model by Hangar B Productions. Which now completes the poster series I started way back. Now to see what they'll look like printed.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This week I learned that there was a fully localized South Korean release of Wing Commander 3! Which means you’re all going to have the option to play WC3 in Korean soon. French, German and Japanese are well documented but this one stayed hidden until now. Here's a quick sample!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today's the day! Origin composer George Oldziey's campaign to create a second album of live Wing Commander music has launched! Fans have been abuzz for the last few days as info has been released, but now there are a number of exciting additional details that can finally be shared.

For starters, Mr. Oldziey has revealed that this is a combination effort! He's not only working with a new live orchestra to perform 40-45 additional minutes of his classic Wing Commander work, but it will also be available digitally, on CD and on vinyl. Both a new live recording and a collectible vinyl print have been high on the list of fan requests these last few years, but the road to get here has been pretty challenging. Costs have been up and down as the world has been in turmoil, but George has been working on new bids that look very promising in order to make this happen. Here's a video that explains how this

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
The engineer Ram Tah has discovered a method of immunising existing Guardian modules against the effects of anti-Guardian fields.
Earlier this year, Ram Tah discovered that certain Guardian relics revealed and activated nanite clusters when exposed to specific electromagnetic frequencies. These nanites proved disruptive to Thargoid technology on a molecular level and, importantly, were entirely unaffected by anti-Guardian fields unlike other Guardian technology.
In an urgent press conference, Aegis leadership announced a breakthrough in researching that latter quality.
The following statement was given by Professor Alba Tesreau:
"Our knowledge of the Thargoids' ancient adversary, the Guardians, is still so very limited, and yet Guardian technology has once again paved a way forward for humanity."
"We urge pilots to use the modifications we are producing to utilise

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AircPirateNinsei

's second flying

Hornet model

has taken off. This one's a lot more stable in flight and manages to cruise for about two minutes. It almost made a smooth landing, but I can imagine it's pretty hard to glide those in remotely. Plans are already in the work for a third version with structural reinforcements and familiar decals to spice things up a bit. We can't wait to see! You can follow the development at the

Flite Test Forums

.

The Hornet is our contribution to the 2019 Flite Test Forum & Flite Fest Community Fantasy Aircraft Design & Build Challenge! For more information about this model please visit our website: Airc Pirates – the sky is our ocean

The maiden flight of V0.2 was successful. The Hornet flies fantastic and I think it is perfect for a FT Power Pack B setup. Unfortunately there was a small pilot error which led to a crash.

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Systems: Resolved an issue where the Section 31 Phaser Pistols primary fire was being impacted by the cooldown on secondary exploit powers. Resolved an issue that caused the "Cold-Hearted" starship trait not to work correctly with Beam Overload Resolved an issue that caused the Lukari Reputation Polaron Dual Beam Bank to deal incorrect damage during Beam Overload. Resolved an issue that caused the Romulan Reputation Disruptor Beam Array to deal Plasma Damage during Beam Overload. Resolved an issue that could cause shots during Beam Overload to be faster than intended. Resolved an issue that caused the description of the Special Requisition Choice Pack - Tier 6 Promotional Ship Choice Pack to be partially cut off.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

LeHah reports that his Roku is now advertising the Wing Commander Movie as a $2.99 Redbox rental. This is an interesting development as new deals appeared frozen after 2016 as the rights reverted from Fox to Chris Roberts. Hard copies of the film went out of print and it got relatively harder to find. Hopefully this means that the wheels of commerce are starting to thaw and we'll see Wing Commander start to pop up in more places again soon!

Roku has informed me the WC movie is now available on Redbox

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Welcome to the Twenties! That feels so very weird to type. As we step into a whole new decade, we'll take one more look back today at all of the wonderful things that happened in the world of Wing Commander in 2019. It was another big year! First up, here's the recap of the news:

Right off the bat, it was a time of discovery as we learned new things. We finally figured out what the mystery fighter in Academy was intended to be and added a couple of the show's scripts to the archive. A tantalizing bit of phonetic script was discovered in the Secret Missions and a fun easter egg in SNES SM1. And shockingly, a new Wing Commander game was released in Japan! Wing Commander Arena finally debuted on the Xbox 360 in January after almost 12 years in limbo. In February, LOAF and Dundradal kicked off the first season of All Wings Considered, the CIC's weekly streaming variety show. The team produced