News categories list

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Alliance Assembly has submitted an appeal for clemency to Federal Congress for followers of the Order of the Far God.
The Thargoid-worshipping faith was outlawed by the Federation in October 3308, after a failed initiative in the Popontia system to outfit a megaship named the Dedicant. Every member of the 'True Chapters' sect on board was arrested and stripped of citizenship, with FIA agents rounding up known collaborators in subsequent days. This was in accordance with the Federal constitution which forbids supporting enemies of the state, which the Thargoids are legally classified as.
As part of the request, Prime Minister Edmund Mahon stated:
"The Alliance upholds the principles of religious tolerance, and our systems are free to develop their own laws regarding faith. This means we have always welcomed the Order of the Far God, regardless of its controversial nature. While many

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Up for a little late night Wing Commander lore? Claw Marks includes the earliest published timeline. The late, great Aaron Allston imagined the major battles of the first two decades of the Kilrathi war. Including the 2639 “Enyo Engagement”:

Claw Marks also establishes that Knight is a veteran of the Enyo Engagement and that it was where he earned his callsign. (I know what you’re thinking; Knight was a combat pilot for 15 years?!?!)

Next, the Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide, which heavily references Claw Marks, says that one of Blair’s Academy instructors was Lt. Col. Blakely, the man who planned the Confederation’s counterattack.

Uh, don’t you mean Prankster and not Blair? Regardless of how you choose to deal with that, Blair being in Blakely’s class is mentioned in one of his yearbook signatures in the Kilrathi Saga manual:

The second iteration of the Wing Commander timeline is published

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Crazed pilots that were killing civilians in the Shamash system have been eliminated.
The local security force vessels participating in Fleet Exercise Grey Swan were exposed to an anomalous signal, which then circulated through the fleet's networked comms. This apparently triggered a violent mania that caused them to attack passing traffic.
Captain Ulrich Maurer of the megaship Khonsu Gleam announced that an operation to eliminate the threat had concluded:
"All Grey Swan ships have now been targeted and destroyed. Though tragic, this action undoubtedly saved many thousands of lives and has brought peace to the system once more. San Tu State Network, in agreement with Shamash Future, has agreed to reimburse all independent pilots who took part. Payments are available for collection at the Khonsu Gleam."
Shamash Future confirmed that Garrett Orbital, which was locked

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

If you're still in a post-holiday brain daze, maybe you need a shot of funky electronic music to get the body moving again! (In the event that it's Covid, we recommend instead getting a prescription of Paxlovid.) George Sanger and Team Fat are here to deliver with a brand new digital album titled Project Shish Kebab 2023. You can listen to and buy the album at Band Camp, and it's also available for free on YouTube below with an accompanying video to show off how it was all recorded.

The Fat Man and Team Fat just released Project Shish Kebab 2023, check it out here.

“Another New Years' Bonus: Welcome back to The Jam That Looks Like a Chess Match(R)!!

In case you missed it, this is our annual "Project Shish Kebab" get-together. It's exactly how we make videogame music according to our parents' imaginations.

It's a spin-off from 25 years of bloop-and-bleep jams at the legendary Project BarBQ audio

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Imperial Senate has formally welcomed back Senator Zemina Torval, following an absence of several months.
Torval's reappearance put an end to rumours that she was suffering from ill health. Her youngest daughter, Senator Petra Torval, had been standing in for her mother by representing the Imperial populace of the Synteini system.
Addressing the Senate, Zemina Torval said:
"I am grateful to this august body, and to Her Majesty the Emperor, for permitting me a short respite from my duties. I have used this time to fully discharge my corporate responsibilities. As is common knowledge, ownership of Torval Mining Ltd has been transferred to my eldest daughter Constantia. She will ensure that Imperial industries continue to be supplied with vital mineral resources."
"My attention is now fully focused on my senatorial work. This is where I have best served the Empire, and will continue to do so

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Aegis is urgently requesting deliveries of Thargoid spire site materials to Professor Ishmael Palin in the Arque system.
The alien minerals are needed for vital research based on a new theory by the engineer Ram Tah. His research has suggested a method of defeating the Thargoid Titans, although details of the proposal remain classified by Aegis.
Professor Palin, the leading expert in Thargoid biotechnology, explained the initiative:
"I am confident that Ram Tah's theory holds water, and we are working together on its practical applications. There are no guarantees as yet, but we could be on the cusp of developing a weapon with which to engage the Titans."
"However, such a weapon must be able to function within the Maelstroms' electromagnetic fields, which disrupt all Guardian-based technology. I am developing a resistant armour using the organic compounds produced by

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We recently spent some time dissecting and analyzing the Wing Commander preview for the Amiga. Now we've followed that up with the same treatment for the Wing Commander II rolling demo! The Wing Commander II demo was put together by Origin for Winter CES 1991 and was first shown on January 10 of that year. It was the first Wing Commander to include speech (featuring voices recorded by the developers) and remains the release with the most time between the demo and the final product (roughly eight months). It's most famous for some of the wonderful extra graphics it contains, including an alternate model for the Bloodfang, a closeup of a Kilrathi guardsman and an animated scene in which Prince Thkrahath enters the Emperor's throne room. We've collected videos, assets, history and even hehind the scenes stories from the development team!

There's even a new patch available for download for the community,

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Tonight’s little project: a spreadsheet of all the ship graphics that appear in Privateer 2’s booth and which palette they use! Find the full link here (second tab).

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Frequent readers of the Tri-System CCN booth news will find about ten stories written about Zakariah_Skintight and his hit band, The Buttock Men. But who is Zak Skintight and why is he featured so prominently? LOAF recently caught up with Privateer 2 developer Paul Hughes and finally got the answer!

I think that was Paul “Stitch” Chapman - the chap that did all the UI and box covers/ manual. He used to play bass in a band in his uni days.

Stitch was a brilliant UI designer - he was so shocked at how bad the box art and manual were shaping up, he took it upon himself to do it and knocked it out of the park. He proper pushed us to make a really cool UI (for 1995!).

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

We have exciting news! Captains on PC will be able to enjoy a bonus on purchased ZEN! Is there a ship in the C-Store that is tempting you? Now is the perfect opportunity to grab ships, keys, and whatever else has caught your eye. From April 11th at 9am PT to April 15th at 9am PT, Captains will earn an extra bonus on purchased ZEN when you charge through Direct Credit Card, PayPal, Skrill, BoaCompra, Xsolla, Paysafecard, or Steam. *Please note that this Charge Bonus offer is ONLY available for the following payment processors: Direct Credit Card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover) PayPal Skrill BoaCompra Xsolla Paysafecard Steam .share-footer a { margin: 20px 10px 10px 0; background: url(d7afaaa14e96d0d973f76157ae31ec5b1466398539.png) no-repeat 0 0; opacity: .5; display: inline-block; height: 60px; width: 60px; padding: 0;

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Star Trek Online is running a special weekend event where you can earn bonus Dilithium Ore by playing content throughout the game! It’s time to hit the drills, Captains! The Dilithium Ore event runs from 8AM PT Thursday, August 1st to 10AM PT Monday, August 5th. During the event, bonus Dilithium Ore will be provided for the following content: Vlugta Asteroid Field: 100% Bonus Dilithium Ore for Daily Mining Missions 100% Bonus to all Rich Dilithium Claims Fleet Dilithium Mine: 100% Bonus Dilithium Ore for Daily Mining Missions Everywhere else in the game 50% Bonus Dilithium Ore Dilithium rewards from completing Event Reputation Projects no longer receive a bonus. This excludes Event Reputation Projects Please note: The Dilithium Weekend does not effect rewards from the Endeavor system. We hope you enjoy this special event and we’ll see you in-game!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Attention flying pancake fans! Today's all about the Dralthi. First up,

Howard Day

has started building the interior cockpit for the Dralthi in

Wing Leader

. The preview below compares it to the peek we got in Secret Missions 2. It's off to a wonderful start!

Additionally,

Goliath

has taken Howard's updated Dralthi model and incorporated it into the

Sprite Refresh

, which is another cool WC1-centric project. Whereas Howie is recoding the engine from the ground up, Goliath is finding clever ways to incorporate higher quality assets into the original engine. And it's just fantastic to see how far both projects can go when they work together!

Finally, here's some sprite spinners of the new Dralthi model that we missed posting originally. There's both a standard and ace variant, which is pretty sweet!

Dralthi update for the #WingCommander #Pixelart #Remake! More details, markings. Done before I got

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The CIC website is made up of thousands of pages and dozens of sections,

some

dating back to our earliest days. Inevitably, some links will break over time as things get moved around or reworked. For last year's anniversary, we put in a huge

effort

to fix broken links and iron out various visual issues around the website. This year, we continued along this line, but with a heavy focus on our 1998-2012 news archive. Our

current layout

was rolled out in 2012 and was based on (then) modern HTML and CSS features, while our substantial back catalog of news articles was composed with an older stack in mind. In addition, some updates contained minor HTML glitches that the browsers of

yesteryear

probably just glossed over or silently fixed (hence why they went unnoticed at the time of publishing), but that modern browsers no longer put up with. This could result in a link not showing up or stranger effects, like

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The Late Night Session

has conducted a thorough retro review on Wing Commander. They set the stage for how revolutionary the original WC was by drawing the comparison to competitors that arrived years later. The immersive setting, tight controls and story all get credit for making the game a classic. It's nice to see people continuing to find that most aspects hold up quite well nearly 29 years later. In addition to the typical screenshots, TLNS put together a couple of accompanying videos, which is always a nice touch for a review! You can check out the full article

here

.

When playing it’s amazing seeing how much the developers got right in Wing Commander that would clearly inspire the many games that followed. Navigation points, wingman communications, even mission briefings… these admittedly were often a staple for military sims but seeing them executed in a space sim was a rarity. If

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

UnnamedCharacter has another new tool to add to his arsenal of powerful WC1 editing and informational programs. The new 'WC1 Inspector' app provides insight into what all is loaded into memory as a player goes through the game. This can help for modding, diagnosing issues or fulfilling simple curiosity. You can grab the file at the CIC Forums and just play around too. Here's more information:

I do not have an update for the Toolbox, but instead a utility program for viewing a snapshot of in-memory game data. It is an outgrowth of the WC1LiveViewer program, except not live anymore and with much more data. It is a bit slow, but it works for my needs.

The Data tab provides a fairly extensive hierarchical view of the game data set and can be filtered using keywords. The InFlight and Mission tabs provide a specialized view of a subset of the data.

As an example, let us enter an asteroid field. Using the

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It's Thanksgiving in the US today, so we here at the CIC hope you all have a great day and find some great deals online. Although there's really very little relation to the historical pilgrims and Pilgrims from Wing Commander, this is also a wonderful opportunity for us to remind you about an awesome relic in the archives. The CIC is proud to host the otherwise unreleased Wing Commander Pilgrim Truth, Peter Telep's third novel written to tie into the WC Movie. Come for the exciting Wing Commander story - stay for the rad chapter header art by NinjaLA! It's available in several formats: web browser, mobi (Kindle) or epub (iBooks or other). Give it a read and let us know your thoughts!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Sticks, Stories and Scotch is a simple concept that brings together great flight sims, good stories and a solid dose of adult beverage. It sounds like a good time to me! Aaron just finished a thorough replay of Wing Commander 1 and has distilled his final thoughts on the run. He's also kicked off the Secret Missions campaign, so the adventure continues! Follow along here.

First, for a game that’s going to celebrate its 30th anniversary next year, Wing Commander holds up surprisingly well. A lot of that can be attributed to the branching campaign structure which provides a lot more flexibility and replay value than might otherwise be in a game like this. There were a few losing path missions which I don’t know that I ever saw prior to this playthrough.

Despite the technical challenges, I feel that the game is still very much worth playing. For me, personally, I played through the original campaign

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There might not be a new episode of All Wings Considered this week, but you can still get your Privateer streaming fix thanks to a retro review from Event Horizon. They cover all kinds of diverse games, but the author says Privateer holds a special place in his gaming library. The vid clocks in at about 24 minutes and does a good job recapping the major features and what makes the game magical. It confirms that many players find Privateer quite playable even after more than 26 years, so if you've got a friend looking for something to do, Privateer is a great gateway drug into the Wing Commander universe. This review says a joystick is practically a must-have, but I've always found the gameplay to be a little bit slower and quite conducive to keyboard flying. The Tarsus cockpit is even anchored around a keyboard rather than stick or yoke of any kind!

My review of the 1993 classic, Wing Commander

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

General: Updated Memorial plaque to include Kevin Conway Resolved an issue that would sometimes cause the proper FX to not play when using Feign Disintegration power. Resolved an issue where the playing cards in the player's hand could occasionally persist after the emote has ended. Resolved graphical issues with Screen Space Ambient Occlusion on Dranuur Colony. Content: Reduced the damage output of all enemies (including the mini-boss) during the first mini-boss fight of the final ground act of "Measure of Morality, Pt 2". TNG Enterprise NPC’s updated to use the correct costumes. Updated and added more lines of dialogue in the episode, “Measure of Morality”. Ships: Minor visual updates to the DSC Constitution. Adjusted the firing nodes on the Kelvin Constitution Beyond Refit so that phasers in the 5th node fire from the correct spot

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

The Infinity Lock Box, containing prizes from nearly all previously-retired Lock Boxes, will be available again for an appearance on PC. During this time, enemies defeated on both Ground and Space maps will have a small chance of dropping one of these prize-filled packages. This run of the Infinity Lock Box will feature the addition of the Ferengi Quark Marauder [T6] and the Kelvin Divergence Lockbox contents! Continue reading further on for the full details on these new offerings. Updated Prize Lists! Along with the Ferengi Quark Marauder and all of the prizes offered in previous appearances of the Infinity Lock Box, additional prizes originally seen in the Kelvin Divergence Lock Box have been added to the rewards! They now include all of the following: Kelvin Heavy Destroyer [T6] (FED only) Kelvin Timeline D7 Heavy Destroyer [T6] (KDF only) Console - Universal - Hull Image