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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It's been an excellent week for Excalibur models! The Wing Commander community has its own version of the twin movie phenomenon where it seems like fans develop similar items in totally separate bubbles. As is often the case, the result here is that we have double the amazing eye candy to enjoy! In his latest masterpiece, Defiance_Industries designed a slightly beefed up Excalibur based on the Secret Ops version as a bridge to the concept version meant for Wing Commander Arena. There are some very handsome shots of it parked in the Victory's flight deck - plus pics alongside a classic Excalibur and Midway megacarrier. Last, but certainly not least, Defiance has mocked up an entire virtual history of this variant in an ICIS style recap. You can read up on that in a PDF here.

While Pedro is providing quality digital entertainment to the masses, I needed something to keep my skills sharp. So I

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Youtube and Twitch streamers ValiantClan have hosted a big interview with part of the WC4 Fan Remake team, ODVS and DefianceIndustries. The conversation spans a full hour, so it covers a lot of interesting topics! They start out casually talking about the Wing Commander series and then get into the details associated with the remake project. There's plenty of technical discussion mixed with fun anecdotes from the Wing Commander series, so it's a good listen. Check it out below!

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Wing Commander we invited the developers of the Wing Commander IV - Remake Project. We had a nice little chat about their project, the franchise, Star Citizen and Star Trek. The project is a fan attempt to allow owners of Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom to enjoy a more modern experience by loading the files from the original game into a new engine, complete with specially

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we have a trove of nifty Wing Commander line art made by Autofire1979. He's created numerous designs that run the full spectrum from Wing Commanders 1 through 4. A varied sampling of his creations are below, but you can find a whole bunch more at his DeviantArt page - including different paint schemes for certain ships. They're broken out into two galleries: Terran Confederation and Kilrathi. It's one thing to make the popular dreadnoughts, and I included them below for obvious reasons, but he also drew the Drayman, Kilrathi Starbase and Caernaven. That's dedication!

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Did you miss the Cryptic Extra Life 2019 Stream? Check out some behind the scenes pictures or you can watch the VOD for each game available on the links below! Day 1 Events .mySlides {display:none;} Star Trek Online Star Trek Ascendancy Dungeons and Decorators (D&D) Magic Commander Day 2 Events Neverwinter The Carcass: Ceti Alpha V Board Games Krampus (D&D) Extra Life 2019 ❮❯ var slideIndex = 1; showDivs(slideIndex); function plusDivs(n) { showDivs(slideIndex += n); } function showDivs(n) { var i; var x = document.getElementsByClassName("mySlides"); if (n > x.length) {slideIndex = 1} if (n < 1) {slideIndex = x.length} for (i = 0; i < x.length; i++) { x[i].style.display = "none"; } x[slideIndex-1].style.display = "block"; } Note: Codes for in-game rewards from donations have

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Did you miss the Cryptic Extra Life 2019 Stream? Check out some behind the scenes pictures or you can watch the VOD for each game available on the links below! Day 1 Events .mySlides {display:none;} Star Trek Online Star Trek Ascendancy Dungeons and Decorators (D&D) Magic Commander Day 2 Events Neverwinter The Carcass: Ceti Alpha V Board Games Krampus (D&D) Extra Life 2019 ❮❯ var slideIndex = 1; showDivs(slideIndex); function plusDivs(n) { showDivs(slideIndex += n); } function showDivs(n) { var i; var x = document.getElementsByClassName("mySlides"); if (n > x.length) {slideIndex = 1} if (n < 1) {slideIndex = x.length} for (i = 0; i < x.length; i++) { x[i].style.display = "none"; } x[slideIndex-1].style.display = "block"; } Note: Codes for in-game rewards from donations have

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Cryptic Studios is proud to participate in the Extra Life Charity Gaming Event once more! On December 7 and 8, from 10am to 10pm Pacific Time, Cryptic Developers will be playing video, tabletop, and board games live to raise money in support of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals! You can tune in on Cryptic’s Twitch Channel, win in-game prizes, and donate to help children in need! Take a look at our schedule and see below for more details on the event and prizes! You don’t have to wait for the event to donate! Click here to donate right now! PRIZES & DONATIONS During the livestream, players can donate in support of Extra Life. For Neverwinter, there are 7 donation tiers where players will receive in-game codes for the tier they donate in and any tier below. Please note that prizes are subject to change and can be replaced by an item of equal or greater value.

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Thank you for helping us reach AND surpass our goal! Because of your generosity, we raised $12,325! Those who qualified for rewards have been contacted via email. If you donated anonymously, please go here for further instructions on how to claim your reward. Cryptic Studios is proud to participate in the Extra Life Charity Gaming Event once more! On December 7 and 8, from 10am to 10pm Pacific Time, Cryptic Developers will be playing video, tabletop, and board games live to raise money in support of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals! You can tune in on Cryptic’s Twitch Channel, win in-game prizes, and donate to help children in need! Take a look at our schedule and see below for more details on the event and prizes! You don’t have to wait for the event to donate! Click here to donate right now! PRIZES & DONATIONS During the livestream, players can donate in support of Extra Life.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's another nifty release of the WC Toolbox for all of the tinkerers and modders out there. Today UnnamedCharacter took the wraps off some new extraction abilities. The package now lets you extract raw video footage from Wing Commander 3's game files. There's also enhanced support for the WC4 subfiles embedded in that game's archives as well. This adds on to the long list of incremental features that have been steadily added to a number of WC games. You can grab the latest update here and learn more at the CIC Forums.

More extraction support for WC3, this time adding the ability to extract movies. The result is in the AVI format using uncompressed frames; therefore the file sizes can be quite large, especially for the opening movie: about 1.5 GB.

This release also includes all the reversed hashes for WC4 tree file names. Thankfully, the hashing algorithm used for WC4 was improved, and therefore

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

UnnamedCharacter has extracted some fantastic images from the core files that make up Wing Commander 3! He has been experimenting with the programs in his WC Toolbox package to dig deep into the game. While exploring some of the background scenes used during game flow, he has come across a variety of alternate settings that appear to be preliminary prerelease versions of most locations.

The barracks are smaller with beds lining the walls. The bridge has significantly more glow from the various screens and safety lighting around the edges. Its framing has also been pulled back farther to reveal the central captain's chair as well as steps to the upper level. Flight Control pulls in closer to Rachel's terminal, and the loadout screen has been replaced with a video feed of the hangar. TrainSims are also not yet present. We see the flight deck from a more central viewpoint that looks out the bay

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've got pics of

DefianceIndustries

' Secret Ops civilian cruise liner, and it's a beauty! This is such a unique design that it's easy to forget the in-game model was kind of

plain

. There was an

FMV quality

high res model made by Origin, but it wasn't used. Defiance has taken some great cues from that design to make the new model significantly more fancy. It'll be a treat to sight one of these in the

Model Upgrade Pack

!

Next on our list of Beta 1 assets is the Twilite Purchase, the in game mesh really didn't capture the fiction's stated opulence so here's hoping this one is a bit more faithful. If it weren't sailing through bug-infested space, I think a few days aboard this ship might be quite relaxing. It's really kind of an odd duck for WCP, the art-deco design has more in common with the bugs than humans. But the gold trim, scalloped edges, and various shades of blue make for a strangely

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last week we reported about a custom arcade cabinet that appeared to be configurable with an emulated copy of Sega CD Wing Commander. That drudged up some deep memories in gr1mre4per of a 1994 Lifetime movie Children of the Dark. At the 57:50 point, it shows someone flying a WC2 Sabre in an a fake arcade box. Pretty wild! And I can't believe he was able to dig up such a deep reference...

Seeing this has reminded me of a film. It is a film from 1994 called Children Of The Dark. The story revolves around two girls who have a genetic condition that means exposure to the sun is fatal for them. They are forced to leave their town, but during their travels they can be seen playing on an arcade machine. Check out what they are playing!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Chronocidal Guy is back with a new update on his impressive 3D printed Excalibur model. He's not quite ready to share changes on the actual fighter, but he's got a new display stand that's custom fit for the design. I have a few impressive WC models that fans have made before, and figuring out how to best display them is always a consideration. It might seem like a minor detail, but it makes a big difference!

I did manage to print a stand for it, which was a quickie I did at lower resolution, and it resulted in a little bit of a rough finish, but it's enough to tell it's a good design. Still need to build up the detail panels. I might not print them myself, but I want to fix them so they're a part of the model, rather than the current blank spots.

I should be getting the details started sometime after Memorial day, so will try and get some updates here soon.

Quote from Star Trek Online News

This is the Kobayashi Maru... nineteen periods out of Altair Six. We have struck a gravitic mine and have lost all power...our hull is penetrated and we have sustained many casualties. Prepare to face the most infamous Starfleet test! The Kobayashi Maru, the “original no-win scenario,” comes to Star Trek Online as a limited-time challenge for your captains. How long can you hold out against ambushing enemy ships? Can you keep the Kobayashi Maru intact while facing down waves of hostile attackers and space hazards? What would Kirk do? The Kobayashi Maru event will come in two forms: timed and untimed. In each case, you will fight to keep the freighter intact while destroying successive rounds of enemies who will become more and more dangerous as the simulation continues. The longer you last, the greater your rewards! Once everyone on your team is defeated at the same time – or when the timer runs

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a fun rendering by Cybot of various Privateer ship upgrades. You've got things like guns and missile launchers, radars, engines, shields and ECM countermeasures. If this piques your Privateer interest, why not head over to the CIC Wiki WCPedia? LOAF and team have exhaustedly detailed out everything you might want to know about the game's ships, missions, weapons, equipment, commodities and more!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Mac from Mac's Lore has created a new YouTube channel dedicated to explaining the deep backstory behind less famous sci-fi franchises. This style of exposition has gotten popular for series like Star Wars, Halo, Destiny and other AAA titles, so it's great to see it trickle down a little bit further to our neck of the woods lately. Mac's prior videos have been about the Starsiege universe, but he's kicked off the first in a lineup of videos about Wing Commander. Part 1 is all about the False Armistice as presented in Fleet Action. He's done a good job digging up an appropriate collage of images to fit the narrative as he retells the story, which makes it a fun watch as well as a good listen. We're looking forward to part 2!

The events of The False Armistice are a key point in the Terran-Kilrathi War depicted in the Wing Commander series. Humanity is lulled into a false sense of security by an

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Rear Admiral Tarsus' propaganda seems to be working, since his latest round of Gemini Sector RPG posters seem oddly captivating. Perhaps that has something to do with the stars of his new drawings, the CIC Staff. The first image features LOAF surfing on the back of a Ferret as it roars through space. Dundradal is in his element

mansplaining

lecturing the tech about torpedoes. Then #Wingnut regular Scout is shown getting tractored into the back of a Longbow after ejecting. Last but not least, it looks like I've been designated as a member of TCN News' press corps. Apparently flattery will get you somewhere! Read all about the Gemini game here and visit the team on their friendly Discord server.

• Here is a poster with the mighty bandit surfing on a ferret while holding a shield with the crest of the confederation. Important note, his beard is generating oxygen, he's OK, I promise!
• Here is a poster

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Eagle-eyed ship spotter Doug Lee has found a squadron of familiar Wing Commander designs in an unlikely place: a mobile game called Stellar Patrol: Galactic Conflict! The top-down space game features a host of familiar Wing Commander designs... and even uses a Rapier as its app icon! This is likely not a case of licensing the IP from Electronic Arts as Stellar Patrol also includes a number of other familiar science fiction ships like Battlestar Galactica's Viper, Star Wars' A-Wing and Firefly's... Firefly. It's a fun little phone shooter reminiscent of Subspace. If you'd like to check it out, you can download Stellar Patrol for free on Android or iOS. Better hurry and get to it before the lawyers!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The family and colleagues of author Olav Redcourt have reported him missing. A police investigation has so far failed to determine his whereabouts.

Redcourt recently hit the headlines when he terminated his relationship with his publisher, Bonespire Publishing, midway through a promotional tour.

In the wake of the author's disappearance, Bonespire released the following statement:

"We can only assume that Mr Redcourt is trying to avoid paying his fine for contract violation, which runs to several million credits. Of course, should he agree to continue writing the bestselling Corsair King series, we would be happy to waive the damages."

Literary critic Kayla Shah offered an alternative explanation:

"Obsessive readers of the Corsair King series have sent death threats to Redcourt for not delivering exactly what they wanted. Now that he's turned his back on the series, might he have been

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Another kind gift from the @XwingGameSeries account: great scans of the CGSP article that announced Privateer 3 in spectacular fashion!… days before EA killed it. You’ll laugh and then you’ll cry forever. If you've followed our news in the past, you've probably seen these before - but maybe not at this level of quality!

That chart of guns, though! There ain’t no justice.

If you want to feel a LITTLE better, everyone would’ve hated the story (about the Kilrathi trying to resurrect Kilrah using a a Steltek time machine).

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Mr. Hasgaha recently shared this nifty video that he built for a "10-second Cinematic" contest in Star Citizen. He was able to use elements of the existing game engine to recreate the briefing room run, launch and death of a pilot in the original Wing Commander. It's a short clip, but it's very cool to see this modern take on a classic!