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Retro Game Connect

has a new episode, and it's all about Wing Commander 3. RGC is a show that we can really identify with - just a couple of nerdy guys talking about the good old days of classic gaming. This is their 184th episode, and they're actually new to The Heart of the Tiger. In a series that was always ahead of its time, WC3 was perhaps more ahead than any other for the day, which combines with its intrinsic gritty charm to keep it very playable. The reviewers seem to enjoy the game, but they got stumped trying to land. Everyone's been there, especially in WC1 where you had to line up along the nose of the Claw. WC3 makes it much easier, but it still requires you to hit a couple buttons and/or slow down in the right spot. It's a good sign that they still liked it after ramming into the Victory!

Is this take on space dogfighting for cool cats or a messy hairball?

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We spotted a classy

Italian WC3

last month, and this time here's an original Italian Wing Commander courtesy of

Dennis Mull

. This is one of the European

Hit Squad

rereleases, and in this case it was published by Jackson Libri. It came with a similarly stylized version of the manual/Claw Marks as well. We salute everyone going around collecting all these uncommon variants - there are tons of them out there and it can be hard to hunt them down!

Mail Day: Wing Commander from Chris Roberts by Origin Systems in 1990. The Jackson Libri company published the 'Hit Squad' version of Wing Commander in Italy.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Another action packed episode of

All Wings Considered

is fast approaching! Check out LOAF and Dundradal reenacting a key scene from the beginning of Fleet Action below. This week kicks off the start of the new Fleet Action book club -

read

the prologue and first chapter, and then join us on

Discord

and

YouTube

this Thursday!

Join us Thursday, April 4 on or about 7 PM Eastern for another thrilling episode of All Wings Considered! We'll be reading the prologue and the first chapter of Wing Commander: Fleet Action and want YOU to be part of the discussion!

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The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. This week's Nav Points include:

• More Privateer grind! Privateer grind forever!
• Dundradal takes on the Gauntlet
• Fleet Action Book Club, Chapters 8 & 9
• Privateer 2 ship of the week: the Jendevi

Missed the stream? The replay will be available below once it has been processed by YouTube. You can subscribe to the AWC channel for future notifications here.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The notorious art thief known as the Winking Cat has resurfaced in the Alioth system during the Alliance Festival of Culture.

For the festival's sixth week, Garden City Gallery on Turner's World hosts an exhibition of the visual arts. Advanced security measures have been employed to prevent a repetition of the high-profile incident that occurred in June 3304, where the unique work 'Youscape' was stolen from a gallery vault.

Local correspondent Daron Warmack reported for The Alliance Tribune:

"When gallery staff noticed a painting hanging in a previously empty room, they were shocked to recognise it as 'Penance Street', the long-lost masterpiece of famous artist Megan Madigan."

"Experts have verified that this is the original artwork, which vanished in transit 60 years ago. A graphic of a winking cat was also discovered on the wall behind the picture."

"The Winking Cat has returned one of the

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

During the all-new Mycelial Crisis event coming to Star Trek Online later this year, you will be able to unlock an all-new starship, the Elachi Qulash Frigate [T6]! Once completed, this starship will be unlocked for all characters on your account! More details on how to unlock this ship will be contained in a separate developer blog that covers the upcoming new event. Read more to find out all the details pertaining to this great new Elachi starship! Elachi Qulash Frigate [T6] The Qulash Frigate is a fast, nimble starship used to great effect by the mysterious Elachi in their campaign of devastation. Its ability to nimbly maneuver into Mycelial Space and exit from it with heavy firepower to point at foes makes it quite a threat to be reckoned with on the battlefield. During conflicts with these silent enemies, much of their technology has been salvaged and repurposed for use in the fight

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Alliance Festival of Culture has entered its final week with a celebration of food and drink on the planet Birmingham in the Diso system.
Corinne Macintyre, culture correspondent for the Alliance Tribune, reported:
"City streets are lined with stalls offering a wide range of food. Dishes range from humble, home-cooked recipes using local speciality Diso Ma Corn, to delicacies such as baked greebles. Drink connoisseurs have sampled everything from Ethgreze Tea Buds to Leestian Evil Juice, while a multi-storey cocktail bar sponsored by distillers of Lavian Brandy has attracted revellers."
"Despite some companies experiencing difficulty sourcing ingredients, following lower than expected harvests in some systems, this event has been enjoyed by millions of hungry visitors."
To mark the conclusion of the seven-week festival, Prime Minister Edmund Mahon made this announcement:
"I'd like to

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The new playable update has been released for the WC Freelancer port. This version 2.0 beta has the first test economy with the new design model that normalizes each faction's ships in order to keep them relevant throughout the game. It will take quite a bit of balancing to get the feel just right, so feedback from fans at this point is very helpful. L.I.F. is working on coming up with a good deployment of the missile system next, which should make it both useful for the dynamic economy and more of a fit with the Wing Commander universe. You can grab the new beta here (294 meg zip) or here.

OK, so here is the link to the Beta of the new version of the mod with equipment rework. Right now, I do not make ironclad guarantees, but a few tests show that it seems to work as intended, though values for thrust, power, volume, etc., are not set in stone since I did not test all combinations. Therefore, I'd

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Second Officer’s Log, Supplemental My third night shift with the conn has been rather sedate thus far. Several members of the command staff are enjoying some off-duty entertainment in Holodeck Two; I believe it has something to do with a peculiar form of Terran mythology from the 20th century known as “super heroics.” The captain seemed amused by my tactical suggestions for the event, particularly regarding the inefficiency of capes in close combat situations. “All decks have reported in,” Ensign Chen said from the Operations station. “We’re ready to begin the system maintenance sweep at your command.” Second Officer Stoln nodded from the center chair while calling up a display to monitor the procedure. “Very well, Ensign. Begin the procedure, starting with deck 30.” The young Vulcan officer studied the holographic readout emitted from the command chair’s armrest and

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Still striving to get the greatest performance out of your equipment? This weekend will be the perfect time to apply Tech Upgrades to your gear, as we’re doubling the amount of Technology Points earned from each one applied! From Thursday, October 3rd at 8AM PST to October 7th at 10AM PST, every Tech Upgrade used will apply twice as many Technology Points toward your next Upgrade! This in turn reduces the amount of Dilithium that must be spent to reach each Upgrade threshold, allowing Captains additional chances to attain both Mark and Rarity increases on their favored load outs. .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; border: 1px solid transparent; -webkit-transition: opacity .3s; transition:

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Daniel from Spacedock has produced another wonderful profile of a Wing Commander ship. This one covers the Midway from Prophecy. He delves into the design's origins and how Blair was involved with the development. There are comparisons to the Vesuvius class as well as an overview of the ship's role in the Nephilim War (per Star*Soldier!). Spacedock is a wonderful channel with a huge reach, so we're elated to once again see Wing Commander in front of so many people!

Spacedock breaks down the experimental Midway Class Heavy Carrier, as seen in Wing Commander Prophecy.

Thanks to FekLeyrTarg, DefianceIndustries and HotT for the tip! Also check out these previous clips on the Yorktown (TCS Victory), BWS Intrepid and top carrier. Daniel happens to be a big WC fan, and he's previously spoken about how much he enjoys the series like WC that focus on specialized roles for each ship.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

When we posted the first complete pack of enhanced Wing Commander 3 videos a few weeks ago, we labeled them as a "first cut" preliminary effort. They still looked great, but ODVS continues to find ways to create even more visual fidelity of the surprisingly low res/framterate originals. As he looks towards what a 2.0 update might be like, here's created a couple of test videos using more advanced AI/neural net methods to experiment with the next level of updated footage. Faces and hair look surprisingly good! Check the new samples out below.

I've been tinkering with my workflow for remastering the WC3 PSX footage. I've introduced a new AI method for interpolating the frame rate from 15fps to 30fps (which is far more accurate than the previous method), tweaked the AI upscale model and modified my AVIsynth code. So here's another comparison video. I think this bodes well for a WC3 HD Pack V2.0

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We've got an exciting update in the WCPedia to share today! LOAF has spent weeks carefully compiling everything we know about the Wing Commander Customizable Card Game and putting it all together in one massive article. It starts out with all the basics on what the game is, where it came from, what it looks like and even has news clippings from when it was released. LOAF has exhaustively re-scanned each card so there's a beautiful new capture of every single one. Card pages have all the stats and even the classic '90s CIC card-of-the day reviews. There's also a close look at the gorgeous art that was created just for the set. A number of Wingnuts have recently been getting back into the game, so these resources should be a big help! You can find it all here.

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ETPC spotted a fun Digital Foundry video on the history of 3D acceleration. It details the transition from software rending in the early '90s to the emergence of the dedicated 3D card and how it transformed PC gaming. Wing Commanders 2 and 3 get called out as examples of the prime time in market when CPUs did the heavy lifting. Things rapidly changed with the introduction of the 3dfx/Glide cards and their adoption by Quake. Wing Commander fans were at the forefront of this evolution thanks to Wing Commander Prophecy. WC4 and Privateer 2 produced impressive visuals in 1996, but by late 1997 Prophecy was able to add even higher quality transparency, lighting, smoke and other effects. WCP and Secret Ops ran in "software mode" for people without 3D cards, and they received a partial effects set if you had another Direct 3D compatible board, but the real treat was when you had a proper 3dfx Voodoo.

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Today is Thanksgiving in the US. We usually take a moment to wish everyone a good day and hope they're enjoying time with loved ones. This is a Thanksgiving like no other though, and if it means cutting the spread of coronavirus, I hope you're having a boring day with a connection to friends and family via video chat. I've asked people to have a safe holiday many times, but never has it been so critical to take specific steps to protect the people around you. Thank you for doing your part! And you're always welcome in #Wingnut on Discord if you'd like to hang out with us.

With all that being said, I'd be remiss if I didn't take my annual opportunity to remind people about Wing Commander Pilgrim Truth, Peter Telep's third entry in the series of novels based on the Wing Commander Movie. Unlike the original and Pilgrim Stars, Pilgrim Truth did not get a proper published release. Fortunately, he was

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's good news on the streaming front! Last week we reported that a countdown ticker had appeared next to the Wing Commander Academy episodes on the Peacock streaming service. The Peacock support account suggested that this meant the show was moving from a free to a paid tier. However, Zeether noticed that the countdown has vanished and the show appears as it originally did. While it's possible the CIC's considerable clout and influence swayed some executives at NBCUniversal, it's far more likely that this was some kind of mistake or glitch. Note the two comparison shots below of the Exosquad lineup. Random episodes were briefly showing the clock icon, although they've since all gone back to normal. While it's great that everyone will continue to have access for the foreseeable future, it's also still not a bad idea to grab the show on DVD for a more permanent copy.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Chris Kabigting recently shared this creative video. He's mocked up a series of WC logo interfaces based on the initialization screens for Ace Combat 3. Think of the Data Swallow system as a modern day Quine or P.A.D. line. Each sequence goes by pretty quick, so you might want to pause for full appreciation.

This is what happens if you play Ace Combat 3, Homeworld, and Wing Commander IV at the same time in the 90s lol.

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Yesterday we got a peek at the awesome French lobby cards designed to promote the Wing Commander Movie, and I mentioned that there were several also available in North America. I looked a bit through our archives, and pics of these cards are few and far between. We didn't want to deprive anyone of our heroes' retinal signatures or flight (school) records, so here are updated photos of each one! You also get bonus pilot nose art and shots of the back this time. The backs differ by calling out the actor shown on the front. I wonder if anyone has ever mailed one before?

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots Federation ALERT*
Conflict has erupted in the Hyades Sector RO-P b6-2 system between two factions of the Marlinist Colonies.
The Exiled Marlinist Assembly of Baltah'Sine has declared war against the Marlinism Reformation Party, which acts as the political wing of the NMLA.
Political relations degenerated into open combat following the NMLA's recent attacks, with Acting First Minister Amrita Ross's efforts to negotiate a peaceful resolution proving unsuccessful.
A new megaship, Freedom's Voice, has entered service. It is acting as the operational base for the forces of the Exiled Marlinist Assembly of Baltah'Sine.
Supporters of the Marlinism Reformation Party are gathering at the Steel Majesty megaship. This was formerly used by the Neo-Marlinist Order of Mudhrid to flee from their home system.
Minister Octavia Volkov announced in parliament:
"Aaron Whyte and his collaborators are

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Medical and military commodities are needed to support the cross-superpower operation in the HIP 22460 system.
Commodore Morag Halloran, who is coordinating for Azimuth Biotech aboard the Bright Sentinel megaship, outlined the requirements:
"The Proteus Wave is designed to attract the bulk of the Thargoid fleet before destroying them. We are making preparations to defend Salvation from the alien vessels until the superweapon is ready."
"Azimuth Biotech is offering generous payment for shipments of advanced medicines, basic medicines and reactive armour. These can be delivered to the Heart of Taurus megaship in HIP 22460."
"Specially tailored ship liveries are available as additional rewards, in gratitude to those loyal Commanders who are dedicated to Salvation's cause of defeating the Thargoids."
The anti-xeno taskforces of the Alliance, Empire and Federation are