Wing Commander

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The latest addition to the

Homeworld Remastered Mod

is both beautiful and deadly.

L.I.F.

has added the ability for the Wasp to shoot its devastating swarmer missile pod. In combination with the interceptor's speed, Confed really has the ability to reach out and touch someone now!

After some discussion with DefianceIndustries, Dark Sentinel and a few others, we decided it was time to make a game more faithful to the original Wing Commander manga rather than trying to fit the bad gaijin adaptation. Don't you remember fondly when Blair-kun was asking advice to Paladin-sensei on how to deal with baka-Tolwyn?

This is why I'm working on the proper implementation of a true Wingo Commanderu no Blair-san experience for the next update, with the proper Macross Missile Massacre.

More seriously, that's the Wasp's Swarmer missile burst being scripted for future integration of the MUP ships:

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AD found an interesting VHS recording of a '90s Polish video game show, TV Enter. In this episode they review several games, including Dreams to Reality, Critical Depth, Rampage World Tour and Wing Commander: Prophecy. Whether or not you speak the language, this is a very interesting time capsule into the digital landscape of 20 years ago. Each of the profiled games is a unique peek at the graphical differences of the day, and even the garish P2-style computer backdrops between cuts bring back wavy neon memories. If the embed below doesn't work, jump to

7:25 in the video

for the Wing Commander part.

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Artist Mike Winterbauer's has an update on his Wing Commander

Art Portfolio

project. Most of the rewards have started shipping. If you haven't received your items yet, you might want to check your Kickstarter message inbox for an update. The CIC Staff has received some of our items, and they're just gorgeous! We'll have more on the contents in the future. Here's a few more shots of the items preparing to ship:

Happy Holidays Cool Wing Commander Fans! Let us know how you like your rewards!

Thank you for bringing this awesome project to life! I am enjoying packing and shipping the beautiful rewards. Most rewards are shipped. I have some international books and metal prints left to ship and I plan on finishing shipping before Christmas.

Thank you again for your wonderful support.

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Wing Commander fans have dressed up as their favorite pilots and

paraded around

at a number of conventions over the years, but most have been associated with a CIC-sponsored activity. That makes st3lt3k's recent find a fun surprise. He spotted this image taken by

foxpaws

at the 2011 San Diego Comic Con. Even more unusual is the actual outfit depicted here: a flight suit from the Wing Commander Movie. You don't see too many fans wearing these in the wild - especially a dozen years after the film came out! I don't think I've worn mine in public since

2002

. It looks to be an actual prop from the production due to all the small details that seem spot on. High five, dude!

This was a fairly obscure costume. My initial guess was Kaneda from "Akira" until the person clarified.

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PhilsComputerLab

has a new video on a program that slows down older machines. As early as 66 MHz started to come on the market, fans had to use programs like

moslo

to get the original Wing Commander smoothly playable. This presented an issue whereby a system powerful enough to run WC3/4 was too powerful to run WC1. In comes the 'setmul' app that specifically works with higher speed original Pentiums for some very granular adjustment. Wing Commander fans are able to do some amazing things today thanks to utilities like DOSBox that emulate DOS environments, but sometimes it's nice to get things going on the original '90s hardware. This could be useful for classic hardware collectors that don't have space for multiple machines tailored to each game. You can find also Phil's videos on tweaking GOG WC1-3 and Privateer

here

and

here

.

PhilsComputerLab had an interesting video today on how you

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Eagle-eyed Wingnut

StarvingPilot

spotted a Wing Commander prop reappear in a television commercial. A simple, but unique, console appeared near the Midway's hangar in Prophecy. The same unit popped up again in a Coca-Cola ad the following year. Both are visible just briefly, so this is a crazy catch!

Here’s a background WC prop which can be found in another production. This futuristic console (although if you look closely, it looks like a solar panel attached to a battery box and lights) can be found on the hangar deck of the TCS Midway in WCP, as well as a later Coca Cola commercial from 1998. The commercial can be found at:

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In the run up to Wing Commander 4's release, Electronic Arts kicked off a massive marketing blitz that included

theatrical trailers

before movies and a full court press in printed material. Highlights included its record setting budget, gorgeous live sets in the background of FMV and advanced integration with the gameplay. WC4 was popping up everywhere - even in the air! LOAF recently found this in the December 1995 of

American Way

, American Airlines' in flight magazine.

"It's a movie. It's a space combat game. It's the most excitement you'll ever have on your PC."

And they were right!

A few weeks ago I read an old article about marketing Wing Commander IV that mentioned they ran an ad in American Way, the in-flight magazine of American Airlines. It didn’t say what issue, so it took a bit of trial to find... December 1995! ... and if anyone wants a fat stack of old airline magazines

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Adm_Maverick

is back with a big update on his papercraft Wing Commander fighters. He

recently shared

some of his templates and techniques on how to make these awesome little fighters with a home printer and scrap cardboard. Now the ships have been put to good use as part of a new tabletop game that Maverick is putting together. He's spent quite a bit of time playtesting with a friend, and the shots below show off some of their space combat in action. Looks like fun! You can find an elaborate breakdown of the rules and help discuss future refinements at the CIC Forums

here

.

So been a little while since I posted on this project, but wow what an update I have for it.

First off, a friend and I got in basically a whole day of playtesting using some of the rules. And pretty much decided the rules needed to change.I'm just using little cardboard models I've assembled for game tokens at this

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IHOP is running a

Christmas special

where they now offer a stack of Grinch-green pancakes. Although this is kind of weird, Wing Commander fans are

acutely aware

that sometimes you just gotta

turn things green

. To help kick off the holiday season,

Music_Guru

has recolored the famous flying pancake to be green to match. I kind of like it!

So... we have a green Salthi in the SNES version of wing commander... now we need a green Dralthi to match the pancakes! 8P

Lord help me but I love green palette swaps.

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Here's a real cool find from LOAF's recent treasure hunting. This disc contains several Origin demos in one collection courtesy of EA in Australia. The star here is the

WC4 demo

. It's quite a prize for WC collectors who are into finding all the demo discs that come with magazines and the like!

Saturday morning treasure: a demo CD from Electronic Arts Australia! EA did several of these ‘CD Shortplay’ discs for different studios. Wing Commander IV and other great games! And also Cybermage.

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DefianceIndustries

has finished his Exeter, and it's another beauty! The main gun and ball turrets are eye-catching, but there are lots of great details. I especially like the frontal nose shot, which really shows the weaponry off well. The aft hangar bay is also a nice touch, although it could be a bit dicey coming in for a landing while the ship is at full speed! It's

not

the

only

ship

with a bay positioned like that though.

Ah, the Exeter, my favorite destroyer in all of Wing Commander, really in all of Sci-fi destroyers. I probably spent way too long on the hull panels, but I do like how it turned out.

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Dardael

has made a fun new Wing Commander overview video. For starters, it's all in Italian, and we love to see fans spread the word in different languages to reach as many people as possible. On top of that, he's gone through and added extensive subtitles so English speakers won't be left out. He's also upped the production values a notch here by dressing up as a WC1 pilot and inserting himself into various scenes via green screen! That's dedication! Let him know what you think at the

CIC Forums

.

Hi there! I just made a retrospective video about the first Wing Commander. Is in Italian, but I added English subtitles. I would appreciate your help about this, since my English is veeeery rusty :p

Enjoy!

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Centaurianmudpig

has released some new samples from his WC-inspired space combat game,

Project Aries

. The first of the two animated gifs below show off the classic interior cockpit options that you can select during flight. Then there is a demonstration of WC1/2 style flak cannons in action. Finally, there's a clip of a Salthi and Dralthi lookalike escorting a transport. It's nice to see there's still progress being made!

It's been (almost) two years, while development has been on and off (mostly off), work continues.

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There's a couple of really cool updates for the

Homeworld Remastered Mod

. Up first, the demo WC3 era campaign has a new mission. It's a neat setup where players have 15 minutes to prepare for a Kilrathi invasion force. There are a number of ways to win and a number of things to do to get ready, and it'll be interesting to see how players take this challenge on. The other improvement is a visual trick that potentially allows

L.I.F.

to implement variable textures on his ships. This will allow the game to better differentiate between different members of the same class with proper naming or hull numbers. Grab the latest version of the mod

here

.

I'm mostly done on the third Victory single player mission: Following the successful destruction of the Kilrathi supply convoy, the Victory and her battlegroup are holding position next to the jump point. The InSys station that noticed the convoy

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The Vega Sector fleet continues to grow.

DefianceIndustries

has turned his attention to the Tiger's Claw, and he's taking an interesting perspective on it. The goal is to merge some of the differences between the in-game sprite and the line art from Claw Marks. There are lots of different versions of the Tiger's Claw that show up here and there, and each has its own interesting aspects, so this is pretty cool to see!

The WC1 parade continues. Line-art accurate Bengal for all. You'll notice several differences between the line art and the final Sprite model. The three biggest ones I found are the tapering at the bow is more pronounced, There are only 5 engines instead of 6, and overall the vessel isn't very tall, it's more squat than the final version. But, I kinda dig the '80s ball style turrets and the more detailed stern. I'll texture it when time permits.

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The year is quickly drawing to a close, so Wingnuts once again have a chance to pick their top fan projects and/or websites of the year. Before the voting gets going later on, everyone has a chance to nominate some of the undertakings that they think should be recognized. Send your recommendations to

news@wcnews.com

and let us know! Here's a rundown of the past winners to jog your memory.

2017	Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack	Homeworld Remastered / Flat Universe
2016	Flat Universe	Homeworld Remastered / Secret Ops MUP / Enhanced Soundtracks
2015	Homeworld Remastered Mod	Flat Universe / Secret Ops MUP / Klavs' Model Archive
2014	Flat Universe	Klavs' Models / Prophecy Fan Movie
2013	Collected Works of HCl / Klavs' Models	Defiant Few
2012	WC Saga	Klavs' Models
2011	OpenGL Patch for WCP & Secret Ops	TacOps Online & Standoff
2010	Astro Commander's Mini Models

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Black Friday is upon us, so here's a quick roundup of some of the Wing Commander gifts you can give to friends (or yourself!). This list is just the official products that are actively for sale, but hundreds of different things are still available on eBay. One notable absence this year is the Wing Commander Movie being taken out of print. With the transfer of film rights reverting back to Chris Roberts, the Blu-ray and DVD are no longer being printed, and the Amazon/iTunes

digital copies

are no longer available for sale. This newfound scarcity has pushed physical copies of the BRD up to the $90-150 range, so count yourself lucky if you already own

one

. If you don't already have Academy on DVD for $8, now's your chance. Don't let that one catch you off guard when it's no longer available!

On the other hand, the Baen books lineup is now complete with End Run finally becoming

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Herman Rosy Du Preez recent came across an object and did a double-take. From the right angle, a stray head massaging device can bear an uncanny resemblance to the Nephilim Tiamat dreadnought or dry dock structure. I certainly see the family resemblance! Who knows what really inspired

visual futurist Syd Mead

?

I just realized.... Nephilim dreadnought looks like a head massager. Inspiration can come from ANYWHERE!

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It's Thanksgiving in the US today, so the CIC is wishing visitors from all over a pleasant day and good deals online. Due to very tangentially related circumstances, this is also a great chance for us to share a cool artifact from our 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!

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There continues to be progress in the exciting

WC1 Sprite Refresh

project. In order to import high quality ships into the original game engine, modern renders must first be converted into dozens of snapshot angles to simulate 3D. This can be a very tedious process to align and get right, so

Goliath

is developing a technique to automate the image creation. An example with a slick new Dralthi is pictured below! It's wonderful to see how Wingnuts continue to innovate in their quest to enhance the series.

Hooray, it's time for an update! As many of you know, we've been fortunate to have Howard Day around to create some beautiful sprite renders for us to enjoy and experiment with. In doing so, he tackled the first two major steps in the sprite creation process by designing a 3D model and then rendering it with all necessary viewpoints. Based on work done by UnnamedCharacter, we know that