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Last year ZOmegaZ produced a pretty nifty Vega Campaign style collectible in the form of a two inch decorative coin. Now he's running a survey to see which challenge coin options would be popular enough to bring back in a second print run. Omega commissions small fan batches of these art pieces, and the results are pretty slick for about $13. If you missed out the first time around and would like to signal your interest in another set, you can find in the Google doc here. Hopefully there's enough interest to bring these back!

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We've got great news for Wingnuts today! DaveO's extensive archive of Wing Commander videos has returned to the internet. Dave started this vast archive some fifteen years ago with playthroughs of most main story games and their expansions, but over time some segments became unavailable.

There's all kinds of reasons why fans might want to have this at their fingertips. It's very helpful to be able to quickly check how something looked in a mission, consult a video for strategy or grab a certain screenshot. You get game flow, cinematic and gameplay here for a complete experience. A few samples are below, but you can find all of his various game-specific playlists here on YouTube.

The CIC also has its own large scale WC video archive, but it's a little more focused on things like trailers, promotional vids, behind-the-scenes content, fan projects and similar material. The two archives complement

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Here are the damage states for the Privateer cockpits, which can impact your various cockpit gauges and multi function displays. These range from pretty subtle on the Centurion to totally tearing apart your Orion.

One tiny detail that I have always loved about the Privateer cockpits: the three modern ships all have bright speed indicators that are projected on their HUDs... but the old Tarsus has big physical displays you can't see through and their text is a duller green.

But I couldn't figure out where this Tarsus damage went, though... and no amount of ramming things in the game until everything explodes triggered it. I thought it was maybe unused?

BUT I FIGURED IT OUT! It isn't triggered in the game because it's designed for an earlier version of the Tarsus cockpit... THE ONE YOU SEE IN THE INTRO CUTSCENE!

So this was the setup:

Where does this damage fit on the Tarsus cockpit?

The lower part prevents

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Today we have a nice assortment of Spanish magazine scans from Maxi de Sokar. I frequently just post these as they are since they are often visually engaging and interesting on their own, but in this case I provided rough English translations so you can read the articles as well. The first few pages come from Micromania and are a profile of Origin, Richard Garriott and the development of Wing Commander 3. There's also an Armada review from Issue 78 of the magazine, plus a pretty striking WC3 ad. Finally, there's an Armada add from PCMania. Enjoy!

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It's been a killer week for Wing Commander models! Today we've got a Drakhri built by Ardias and based on Klavs' original 3D model. There's actually two variants depicted below that differ in a clever way. The first was built as one piece by the printer. It's a convenient way to manufacture something... although carefully removing the connection points still takes some time. This is the version that was painted, and it looks great in the end! There's also a second take that comes in several pieces. In theory, someone with a smaller 3D printer could still produce this with each element manufactured separately. This always makes it so tempting to buy a 3D printer! You can read all about the construction process or download the associated files at the CIC Forum.

This model is an exact duplicate of Klavs original model. The only modification I made was altering the underside slightly to allow for

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Titan Taranis is under siege, taking major damage, and close to presenting a major turning point in the war against the Thargoids. This is an urgent call to all independent pilots to aid in the complete defeat of a Titan.
A recent surge of financial support has allowed Aegis to remove the material requirements for the following key modules:
- The Thargoid Pulse Neutraliser – the key to punching through the maelstrom's defensive field and reach the centre.
- The Caustic Sink Launcher – a valuable tool to protect ships from the aggressive caustic fog permeating the cloud around the Titan.
This funding originated from numerous groups and individuals following the news about Ram Tah's Guardian Nanite Torpedo technology being deployed to great effect against Taranis. Aegis wish to express that humanity will be forever grateful to those who risked their lives to make this happen.
Good luck,

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There's a new update for the Wing Commander album campaign! If you didn't know, live orchestras can be difficult to book. Top talent often requires deposits and schedule commitment months in advance. Thanks to your early and generous support, composer George Oldziey was already able to secure a date in August, so the effort remains right on track. You can get in on the project yourself here!

Greetings all. As a result of your amazing generosity in pledging to this campaign we have more than passed the initial goal of recording with the full orchestra. Just to update you, I've booked August 19th of this year to travel to Budapest to record all the music! Because of this I will easily be able to meet my original projection of getting the final products to you by October. There will of course be editing and mixing involved, followed soon thereafter by creating the physical rewards.

The Budapest

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Fans have recently rallied to save The Tick after its cancellation by Amazon Studios last week. The superhero show stars François Chau, among many others, who played Vagabond in Wing Commanders 3 and 4. He's been a big voice in the campaign to bring the show back, and he's gotten some major support from Mark Hamill. Far from being a lost cause, the show's creator and cast have announced that they are signed on for more episodes, and their production partners are reportedly looking for another network willing to air a third season. Amazon Prime subscribers can catch the highly rated show for free on Prime Video. Mr. Chau continues to be active in a wide variety of sci-fi shows from Stargate SG1 to Lost to The Expanse to the new X-Files, but it's neat to see him remember his Wing Commander roots like this!

Hey Mark! This is your old pal Vagabond from our Wing Commander days. A big thanks for your

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The human enclave in the Witch Head Nebula has attracted thousands of migrants looking for a fresh start.

One of those heading to the area is Chloe Sedesi, a former apprentice of Professor Ishmael Palin. She gave an interview to Leon Banerjee for Vox Galactica:

"I've been working with the professor for years now, and he's taught me so much about rejigging modules to improve their function. He might come across as a bit serious, but Ishmael's actually a total sweetheart. Although he'll probably frown at me for saying that."

"I'd been thinking about striking out on my own for a while, and the creation of the Witch Head enclave seemed like a good opportunity to do just that. All those independent pilots have done so much for the new enclave, I thought it'd be good to offer a little support."

Sedesi is currently overseeing the installation of a facility at Cinder Dock in Witch Head Sector DL-Y

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Here are this week's main stories.

The Alliance Festival of Culture has entered the Olgrea system this week with a celebration of literature. Fans of both modern and classical fiction gathered to discuss their favourite novels and meet popular authors.

The Fortunes Corsairs faction has organised an initiative to transport food commodities to the Chamas system. A fundraiser supporting efforts to construct an asteroid base in the system is scheduled for next week, with a grand feast advertised as the main attraction.

And those are the main stories this week.

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The team over at Double Damage Games has announced that the highly acclaimed space sim Rebel Galaxy Outlaw will be coming to the Xbox platform! Most of the CIC Staff plays a good chunk of our modern games on the Xbox, so some of us who don't have a high end gaming PC were looking forward to this. Meanwhile, progress on the previously announced Playstation 4 and Switch ports continues, although the games won't make it out this year as expected. A new development roadmap will be published next month with more details on the timeline. A preview video of the Nintendo version is below, and it looks pretty sweet! The PS4 and Xbox versions will more or less be identical to the game on PC. You can currently buy the game on the Epic Game Store where there is a $10 coupon that can be stacked on top of a 25% holiday discount, which makes the game a whopping $12.49! Quite a steal!

We have something exciting

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We've got some delightful new artifacts to share today! LOAF found these WC CCG scans in a pair of vintage copies of InQuest. First up is a December 1995 advertisement featuring a Vaktoth unleashing a deadly salvo against a Hellcat. The art was made by Barclay Shaw and is featured on the Going Ape Kilrathi Maneuver card. The tagline is especially cool: "FLY A VAKTOTH IN THE KILRATHI IMPERIAL FLEET!" The January 1996 issue also includes a nifty review of the game and a price sheet.. Despite how ahead of their time Mag Force 7 was with getting information online in 1995, this was before many gamers had internet access or knew how to find the Wing Commander communities, so magazines like these were an invaluable way to get the inside scoop!

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Yeah, yeah, I know this has been done to to death already, but we just couldn't resist. At least you can blame Rear Admiral Tarsus for the WC2 version.

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Here's a super retro magazine scan from the December 1993 issue of PC Review. Bear in mind that this was still the early 1990s, and the topic of the article is how space has become the "cluttered frontier." Apparently there were so many space combat and sci-fi games that people don't know where to start. In hindsight, it seems like Wing Commander, X-Wing, Elite, a couple Star Treks and a few more less popular titles was a navigable space, but they created a three page spread to help organize things. This includes a glossary of space themed terms you should know like "aliens," "light year" and "tractor beam." The best part? It's got to be those off-color marbled backgrounds behind each subsection. It was 1993, after all.

Lightspeed: Velocity attained when a starship equals the speed of light photons.

Thanks to the X-Wing Game Series Twitter for digging this one up!

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The Oracle starport in the Delphi system began tumbling out of orbit following a recent Thargoid attack.
The station was already ablaze and severely damaged by caustic enzymes during a Thargoid incursion in the Delphi system. This led to a cascading systems failure that shut down all of the station's alignment thrusters.
As a result, the entire starport became affected by the gravity of Delphi 5 a, and began falling toward the moon. This immediately endangered the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.
Due to fire damage in the docking bay and the narrow timescale, evacuation of The Oracle's entire population before it impacted upon the surface was considered impossible.
With only hours to go before collision, independent pilots risked their lives to rescue thousands of trapped civilians from the falling and damaged starport. This allowed the engineers to focus on patching up The Oracle's

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Last year our headline update ended with a question mark rather than our typical exclamation point. It's been a hard year, but we are in a decidedly different place this summer compared to last. Some of us have had to put off funerals for the people we've lost, while at the same time many are welcoming new additions to the family. The omnipresent dread has made way for cautious optimism.

At this point two years ago we were looking forward to gathering at in-person CIC events, and while all our future plans are still soft, it certainly seems like we're much closer to getting back together. It's encouraging to see on the Discord that Wingnuts from many different countries are steadily getting vaccinated, and we're eagerly awaiting authorization for younger children to get the shot as well. So wherever you find yourself this weekend, hopefully things are looking up for you too. Above all else,

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Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson today achieved their long anticipated goal of launching a full crew aboard their rocket-propelled space plane. Way back in 2006, we reported that commercial launches were expected to be about two years away - and it's been more than 15! But as we've seen time and time again over the past decade, space is hard, but it's still possible to transform iconic ideas from science fiction into reality.

Much of the internet is quick to point out that today's flight is not without caveats: the ship barely crosses the 50 mile line for a few minutes, and it's slightly suspect that the flight was timed to occur just ahead of Jeff Bezos' launch next week. You could call it a fancy jet rather than a space ship. But I prefer to focus on the technological achievement. We see spacecraft launch from planets in Wing Commander like it's nothing, but that doesn't happen without baby

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Here's a funny little easter egg from Wing Commander IV: the pirate helmets (which you only see in a monochrome VDU postage stamp in the actual game) are the Confed helmet prop vandalized... with ROBERTS crossed out and replaced with "TRASHED"!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The noted historian Sima Kalhana takes a look back at the turbulent events of the last year in a four-part series of articles.
"The start of 3307 was a time of crisis. The rise of the Neo-Marlinist Liberation Army (NMLA), the Marlinist refugee crisis and increased Empire-Federation tensions had brought a full-scale superpower war closer, with renewed attacks from the Thargoids increasing the pressure."
"All of this led to Pranav Antal's proposal of a diplomatic conference for all three superpower governments to work through their problems – the very first Galactic Summit. Within weeks, Sirius Corporation was selected as the neutral host for the conference. Li Yong-Rui scored another triumph by establishing the Marlinist Colonies for millions of political refugees who had fled from the Empire."
"In February came the trial of Fleet Admiral Vincent, accused of arranging Starship One's destruction

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The Wing Commander Movie is seeing is biggest and broadest sale yet. The film briefly dipped down to $5 at Microsoft last year, but now we're seeing the same sale repeated at both Amazon and VUDU/Fandango (which have recently merged). At this point it seems like MS - as well as Google Play/YouTube are still at the $10. All of these are part of Movies Anywhere, so buying them at one storefront gets you access at all of them, which is great.

For a while after 2017 when the rights were changing over, the movie was hard to buy in any format, including streaming, but it's nice to see that it's more readily available again now. Apple/iTunes appears to be the last major platform that doesn't have a digital purchase option, but it can be rented. And buying it at the other places does deliver a purchased copy to your iTunes account, so at least that's an option. It's hard to go wrong for $5!

Based on the