News categories list

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

DefianceIndustries has an update on the next big release for the Prophecy & Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack. He's laid out a list of expected features for the upcoming version, and there's some neat stuff in there! At the top of the list, the game will work with ODVS' high definition video packs. There are a number of technical improvements, plus more gorgeous ships. Stay tuned for more news in the future!

Hey all - It's been a while, but the recent activity on this thread has nudged us to moving forward with version 1 release of the MUP. Right now I'm in the process of cleaning up the Beta files - there are a number of recent bugs to fix as well. However the new release will have the following new features:

1. The long-awaited HD video fix incorporated into the DLLs so the MUP will play nice with ODVS' HD packs.
2. Quality of life improvements for collision spheres on asteroids.
3. Implementation of normal

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last week we posted a neat piece of Excalibur water color art. At the time, we noted how unusual and novel that was, but it was apparently not unique! carrier that he painted long ago. Sure, it's not a fully modeled and textured 3D asset ready for a 4K game engine, but it represents the desire to create WC content that has kept the WC community going for so many years! It also gives us a great excuse to show off the swanky WC4 Concordia render.

Good Lord; I think I was a teenager when I painted this, which was farther back now than I care to admit to.

Funnily enough, I had a bit of a cleanout a few days ago and stumbled across this, painted around the same time. I'm not sure what inspired me to do a watercolour of a piece of a carrier but there we are.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Techmaster has a new channel that's playing around with various video games and AI enhancement programs, and Wing Commander is ripe for fusion of the two. One of their first clips is an upscaled sample of Wing Commander 3, which is very challenging to enhance due to its vintage 1994 low-res, low-framerate & high compression footage. Kilrathi fur doesn't make it any easier either. I would say the thumbnail looks a bit better than the video in motion, but it's not a bad first effort. Overall, it's just good to see more people dabbling in this technology!

Crazy AI video upscaling 240p to 4k Wing Commander III PS1 game topaz veai + dain app

As you're probably familiar, ODVS has been spending considerable effort over the last couple years to perfect his own AI-enhanced upscaling efforts. Comparing the two, you can see the improvement that comes from all of this investment!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Actress Dana Delany, who voiced Gwen "Archer" Bowman in Wing Commander Academy, had an unfortunate accident this week. She had a bad fall down a flight of stairs and came out of it with a black eye. Many news outlets are reporting how she was a longtime friend of Bob Saget, whose recent death appears connected to head trauma. As such, Ms. Delany took the incident seriously and got it checked out. Fortunately it appears that she'll be fine!

You should see the other guy.

Thank you all for your concern. I fell down some iron stairs head first (totally sober!) & all I could think of was poor Bob Saget. So I grabbed the handrail with my face. I was afraid it was fractured but thankfully, no. The folks at St John's emergency took great care of me.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's a little error in the intro to Super Wing Commander. Paladin reports that his wing is "approaching Fralthi target" when what they're actually attacking what immediately turns out to be a Snakeir carrier.

You can watch the full intro here. An even dorkier continuity error is that the intro can't happen BEFORE WC1 because the Rapiers, Fralthi and Snakeir are the (only) specific ships that are introduced as being brand new during the game.

So wondering if there was a story here, I went back to access the 3D models used to render Super Wing Commander's ships. SNAKEIR.OBJ is the carrier (later reused by Armada as the Shiraak) but FRALTHI.OBJ is... this:

I forgive you if you don't know the Super Wing Commander Fralthi redesign by heart, so here it is from the manual:

Is it just a case of giving up on one concept and switching to another for the actual game? Well, I found another piece of the puzzle:

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Extra sharp Steltek egg this year! Hope you are all safe and healthy this holiday.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Archon Delaine has announced that pirate leader Callan Salamanca is the newest member of the Kumo Council's upper echelon.
Political journalist Conrad Sterling provided an overview for Vox Galactica:
"The Kumo Council was formed by Archon Delaine to delegate his control over the criminal syndicate. Each member has the title of corsair, and oversees a region or system within his territory. But Delaine's most trusted advisers, known as arch-corsairs, work with him on strategic goals."
"The latest addition is the son of Gideon 'Soulless' Salamanca, one of the most infamous warlords in the Pegasi sector. Following Salamanca's unexpected death from a cardiac event, Delaine has elevated Callan to take his father's place on the council, despite the young man's reputation for impulsive behaviour."
"Two others remain in the council's inner circle. Vidar Trask has been close to Delaine for many years

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Sirius Corporation has organised humanitarian support for the Didio system, which is under attack by Thargoid vessels.
The Alliance Defence Fleet is currently combating the Thargoid threat in Didio, under the command of Admiral Rachel Ziegler.
Admiral Nikolas Glass, who acts as a liaison between the megacorp and the Alliance Defence Force, provided details of the campaign:
"With the strategic defence pact yet to be ratified, the Council of Admirals has not approved the deployment of Sirius Navy ships as part of an Allied fleet. However, Sirius Corporation is keen to show its commitment to helping the Alliance, and will do so by supplying vital resources to the Didio system's besieged population."
"Large quantities of basic medicines, evacuation shelters and food cartridges are urgently required. These can be delivered to the megaship Chariot of Rhea in the Leesti

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Forces involved in an attempted coup on Archon Delaine's syndicate have been soundly defeated in the HIP 10792 system.
Vidar Trask, formerly an arch-corsair in the Kumo Crew syndicate, was declared dead when his private vessel was destroyed during the conflict. The few surviving ships in the Trask Death Corsairs have now abandoned his cause.
Reports from The Pegasi Sentinel and Vox Galactica newsfeeds have shed more light on the insurrection. Over the past few years, Trask secretly gathered followers while acting as Archon Delaine's trusted advisor. Funded by successful gambling at Jokers' Deck events, he bought the loyalty of many independent criminal groups to bolster his forces.
It has also been revealed that Trask's previously unidentified mercenaries were members of the Blue Viper Club dredger clan. This suggests that his partner in the coup attempt was indeed

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The probationary period for the proposed anti-xeno partnership between the Alliance and Sirius Corporation has now ended.
Prime Minister Edmund Mahon made this public statement:
"Documentation for the strategic defence pact has been submitted to the Assembly for debate and amendment. Council members will vote by the end of June to decide whether or not it should be ratified."
"In the last three months, Sirius Corporation has successfully increased security for Allied interests in the Coalsack and Witch Head Nebulas. It also did a splendid job arranging for crucial supplies to be delivered to the Didio system during the Thargoid invasion."
"The Council of Admirals does not wish to rely exclusively on Salvation to protect Allied systems, and I concur with their assessment. Combining our defence force with Sirius's resources will be a huge step toward forming an Alliance Navy, thereby increasing

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Mac is gearing up to do some new Wing Commander Lore videos, but first he's got this short video to show off some of his models (designed by Klavs) and animations techniques. Those Rapiers have some pretty smooth moves!

Audio was taken from an online trucking night w friends. We might have been a little tipsy.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

My Privateer challenge was to get a screenshot of each ship in each base. So here's a quick post! Mining/pirate asteroids:

Agricultural/pleasure planets:

Refineries! A reminder that Privateer shipped on 6 3.5" diskettes: only the asteroid version has an animated spotlight.

New Constantinople...

New Detroit...

class="twittercard">Oxford!

Perry. Technically, this is a "hangar bay" instead of a "landing pad". The more you know!

And of course by far the biggest pain in the butt to collect... the derelict!

These are all bound for the WCPedia where I've been doing some pretty neat insane person stuff but also that I've been too brain exhausted to talk much about. You can check out the newly completed Hangar page here!

Display More

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Studying the Thargoid Titans has become a priority for Azimuth Biotech, which is keen to learn more about the alien motherships.
Director Xavier Rousseau , head of the corporation's bioscience division, was interviewed by the tech industry ICE channel On/Off Switch:
"The Thargoid Titans present us with a range of exciting unknowns. What technologies were involved in their construction? We do not know. What exactly is a Titan's hull comprised of? We cannot tell. How do the glowing openings on its superstructure work? We are not certain. Do they perform the same function as our docking bays? We can only speculate."
"How can we find these answers? By analysing whatever fragments and residues can be obtained directly from the Titans themselves. What military breakthroughs will result? What scientific marvels could be unlocked? What commercial opportunities might arise? We at Azimuth Biotech will

Want to witness the gigantic Thargoid mothership end? ...

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Hey Captains, I'd like to take this moment and introduce myself to the esteemed STO Community. My name is Andre Emerson. I've been producing, designing and directing games for the past 25 years. When I got the call from Ricossa at Cryptic, looking for a new executive producer for STO, I channeled my best inner-Kirk, jumped on a plane, met him and the crew. The rest, as they say, is history. I've been working side by side with Ricossa and the crew for about six months now. I beamed aboard during the development of the Victory is Life expansion. The STO crew assembled an amazing DS9 vision for this most recent release and for me, it was the perfect timing to get a feel for the team and to begin charting forward. We now have an unparalleled opportunity upon us. This is the first time in Star Trek Online's eight-year run where we've had an opportunity to develop in lockstep with a live Star Trek

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

L.I.F. has made excellent progress in just a few short days on his TCS Victory model in From the Depths. The new shots below show the aft and underside sections coming together, so the entire exterior hull is about 95% complete now. That's pretty exciting, because it means the interesting interior bits will soon start to come together. L.I.F. has also remarked on the sense of size and scale. As a carrier, it's very big!

Current stats: 2.5 million resources, 142,344 blocks. I need to finish part of the bottom and then put the bottom engineering sections as well as all engines. Then the tedious part of interior decoration will start. Expect a 200,000 blocks blueprint once I upload it.

The most important realization for me is that Victory is BIG. It's a really, really big ship, which doesn't appear that clearly (at least it didn't for me) in the original game, considering we're mostly seeing it from

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Earlier this weekend we reported on some collaboration to integrate ODVS' significantly enhanced video with the upgraded WC4 game engine that Pedro and team are working on. This was a test to see how 60 FPS video would work to sync with the high frame rate of the gameplay. I think it looks pretty good. Some people find the hyper real sensation off-putting, but I think it fits better here than in other places. The team says it's unlikely that they'll go with the high motion cutscenes, but it's still pretty cool to see here. And this is one fantastic scene to rewatch!

This came off the back of a conversation with Pedro - he said since I've been remastering some of the WCP CD-ROM videos and upping them from 15fps to 30fps, could I up the WC4 DVD videos to 60fps? So I thought I'd give it a go

It's certainly interesting - but it possibly falls prey to the dreaded "Soap Opera Effect". However, in doing

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

LOAF made a great find recently in the October 1996 issue of Power Play, the German computer games magazine. It starts off with a wonderful cover featuring Lev Arris, an Icarus and a Heretic. Then on the next page it stuns with another gorgeous Heretic with green accents. It almost looks like the color scheme to Wing Commander 1, which gives me some crazy ideas about what fans could do to touch up the P2 ships. That leads into a three page spread that touches on the game highlights, all the star actors and the story. That fancy green Heretic resurfaces too. We were around in the lead-up to Priv 2, but didn't have nearly as much reach in those early days of the internet. After all these years, it's wonderful to see what was going on everywhere else!

Bandit (LOAF): the perfect magazine cover doesn't exist

the October 1996 issue of Power Play: [left]

Bandit (LOAF): I want that printed on every

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

An independent inquiry by the Federal Attorney's Office into the destruction of presidential vessel Starship One has produced a final report.
Senior Attorney Milandu Okoro made this statement:
"The loss of presidential vessel Starship One in May 3301, along with hundreds of lives, was a great tragedy. Despite suspicion that this was an attempt to eliminate then-President Jasmina Halsey, initial investigations concluded that a catastrophic malfunction of its drive systems was the likely cause."
"A new inquiry was opened when fresh evidence came to light, including testimonies from several members of the Federal Navy. Our final report states that there is sufficient reason to believe Starship One was destroyed by deliberate sabotage."
"A grand jury has determined that criminal charges should be made. We have shared our findings with the Federal Intelligence Agency, and understand that an arrest

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Imperial news sources have confirmed that Prince Harold Duval was assassinated by NMLA terrorists while travelling incognito to the Cemiess system.
Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval broadcast this address:
"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Prince Harold. A state funeral at the Hall of Martyrs is being arranged and there will be a period of mourning, as is customary for esteemed members of the Imperial Family. There will be opportunities for all citizens to honour Harold's memory in an appropriate manner."
Princess Aisling Duval, Harold's daughter, appeared uncharacteristically distressed when she gave a brief statement to the media:
"It's a huge loss to us all that… I'm sorry… I can't believe this has happened. He can't be gone! I used to have some sympathy for the Marlinists, but now they… they took him from us. They took my daddy."
The NMLA also attacked