Wing Commander

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Tomorrow's a big day for sci-fi fans! The second season of Star Trek Prodigy is dropping on Netflix July 1 with a huge 20-episode slate. This unprecedented release means we'll be marathoning the show on the CIC Discord all day Monday! If you were put off by the initial marketing that labeled it as a "kids show," we highly recommend you give it a second look! A better description of the show is a modern animated sequel to Star Trek Voyager. The starships and characters are gorgeous, and the storylines run the whole range from endearing to humorous to tragic and riveting. Stop on by to join the fun!

Star Trek: Prodigy follows a motley crew of young aliens who must figure out how to work together while navigating a greater galaxy, in search of a better future.

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As a Wing Commander fan you're probably wondering, "What's WC3's Ginger Lynn Allen up to lately?" We've got you covered, and the answer is quite a lot! On top of a steady stream of adult content, Ms. Allen has been heavily into art lately. She has an online gallery of acrylic paintings where prints run $50-150 with larger originals going for $1600+. She also has a variety of handmade jewelry for sale on the site. It's good to see that she's remained in touch with her sci-fi roots as well. Check out a little teaser prosthetic she shared from an upcoming production!

All girls feel fat some days. This painting was inspired by my ass.

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How about some vintage French mag scans? Guybrush_SF has you covered! I've also added English translations to make the reviews easier to read. I love the part where they gush about the game's rare beautiful and branching gameplay, but the text is only part of the appeal. It's also always such a fascinating time capsule to look at how an article like this would have been presented more than thirty years ago. We also have previews from each mag in our archive. Find the Gen 4 preview here and Tilt here (though for the Amiga version, so not a direct relationship).

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Anybody play Secret Ops when it was released episodically? Each one ended with a password based on your performance which changed the fiction on the website. All the codes were nerdy references: here TALOS IV is the planet from The Cage, ACHERON is the moon from Alien.

Episode 2 is two 2001: A Space Odyssey nods. AE-35 is the Discovery's antenna that doesn't need to be repaired and TMA-1 is the formal name for the Monolith on the moon (Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One).

Episode 3: this is the one I don't know! LAUMER is most likely SF author Keith Laumer... but I do not know CAIDEN! Anyone have an idea? [Chris: Maybe a misspelling of author Martin Caidin?]

Episode 4: LEONOV for cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (or the Soviet ship from 2010!) and KASPAROV for chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.

Episode 5: BISSETTE and VEITCH are Stephen Bissette and Rick Veitch, horror comic creators (and frequent collaborators).

And

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Today we've got a new model to share from Adm_Maverick. The Piranha might not have the cultural gravitas of the Hornet, Ferret or Arrow, but it's a very fun little ship that gets the job done. Its integrated Stormfire cannon is a sweet bonus, and I really like that it has been modeled here on the side of the fuselage. That's a nice touch!

I just spent the last (counts)... 14 hours building a model of the F-106 Piranha in Tinkercad. I went some artist interpretation for some details, like the side mounted storm fire and the sensor array on the left side. Over all, I think it turned out well enough.

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Did you ever want a list of the helmet numbers from the Gold Squadron pilots in Wing Commander III? If yes then I have great news for you:

COBRA - A31
FLASH - A13
FLINT - A72
HOBBES - A99
MANIAC - A27
MAVERICK - A62
VAGABOND - A41
VAQUERO - A65

Vera: Do these numbers have a meaning?

LOAF: None that I’m aware of... save perhaps that fairly limited number of repeating integers suggests the art department bought as few sets of number stickers as they could!

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Ever wonder about the callsigns in the Wing Commander TrainSim? They're selected from a bank of options when you start a new game. They include all the wingmen plus SEGALLION, DIBBER, ZORO, GRYPHON, SUTEK and POTSHOT. These are all the callsigns of members of the dev team.

Segallion gets a star system in WC1, too. Sutek was Paul Isaac’s callsign but I’m not sure who the original Segallion was. Learn about the many variants of the TrainSim here!

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There has been a fair amount of chat about the deadline to buy Wing Commander Arena with many fans confused about what the game is and how to play it. Many have also encountered a bug in which their Xbox does not allow them to buy the game. We hope to help by answering these questions and others with this quick FAQ.

What is Wing Commander Arena?

Wing Commander Arena is a spinoff game set in the Wing Commander universe. It was developed for the Xbox 360 and released on Xbox Live Arcade on July 25, 2007. It was produced by Electronic Arts and developed by the now-defunct Gaia Industries studio. Xbox Live Arcade titles were small and often experimental budget games; they were released digitally for a low price point. Players should be aware that Arena is not a traditional Wing Commander game with a first person cockpit view and an interactive story. It is a top-down shooter with a heavy focus on frenzied

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For a few years I've been sharing random Wing Commander deep dives on Twitter. There's nothing I love more than taking some specific question or subject that maybe no one cares about and then looking at it as thoroughly as I can… and Twitter has always fit like a glove for that because it lets me kind of project out what I'm thinking about to the world and the inevitably forget about it when I lose steam. I'm a very long winded cross-every-dot writer and just doing stream of consciousness posts that forced me to think about what I was saying was a lot of fun.

So I thought that maybe in addition to that I should start doing longer form versions right here where people actually care about the tiniest bits of Wing Commander errata… and where I'd have some more space for explanatory notes. And I can answer questions and people who actually understand what they're talking about can contribute! Plus, the

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Howard Day is branching into new territory with the introduction of a pirate fighter for his Wing Leader project. He's settled on the Talon, which makes a lot of sense. There's some wonderful variation in paint schemes and weapon loadouts to mimic some of the chaotic design seen by pirates elsewhere in Wing Commander. As much as I like the blues and greens, the purples and oranges really pop here! You can help provide feedback and see some earlier work-in-progress photos at the CIC Forums.

This weekend I spent some time making a set of Pirate fighters - based on the F-38 Talon, these are supposed to be Wingleader-styled versions.

The custom loadouts for these are:
Type A: Photon Blaster, Meson Cannon (scavenged Kilrathi weapons)
Type B: Laser, Meson Cannon
Type C: 2x Laser
Type D: Mass Driver
Type E: Meson Cannon, Neutron Cannon
Type F (Boss/Ace): 2x Laser, Mass Driver

I'd love any feedback on these.

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It's time for the GOG Summer Sale, and that means some nice discounts on Wing Commander! Instead of the typical blanket discount, there are a couple tiers to the markdowns this time. Most Wing Commander titles are 50% off their typical $5.99 price. Armada, Academy and Privateer 2 are curiously 66% off or just $2.03 each. Meanwhile, Strike Commander is 75% off at just $1.49!

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We've been reporting for a while now that Wing Commander Arena's days are numbered in the Microsoft XBox Live Marketplace. The game has had an incredible 17 year run, but all Xbox 360 games that aren't forward-compatible with the Xbox One/Series systems will be delisted from the company's digital storefront on July 29, 2024. The good news is that owners will be able to continue to play online for the foreseeable future, so we've been strongly recommending people buy the game while they have the chance. If you have yet to secure your own copy, there's no time like the present. Microsoft is in the process of heavily discounting a variety of the affected games, which includes a whopping 90% reduction for Arena. It's now only $0.99! You can buy it on the web, but there have been mixed reports of the store hanging and timing out. Try a different browser or return later if you have an issue. See you

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Bandcamp has announced that they are once again holding a fundraiser to support a charity associated with the Juneteenth holiday. This year's recipient will be The Soulsville Foundation, "which perpetuates the soul of Stax Records by preserving its rich cultural legacy, educating youth to be prepared for life success, and inspiring future artists to achieve their dreams." If you've been thinking about picking up Team FAT's Wing Commander I Complete Soundtrack, MT-32 Archive Edition, now is a great time. It's a fantastic deal at just $10! And while we definitely think you should buy a copy of your own, it's also available for streaming on YouTube as well as Spotify. Give it a listen below!

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It’s the one day a year you can post this! Happy day, fathers!

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CountvonSchnaps has another tough looking design to share. His latest creation is the Thunderbolt VII from Wing Commander 3. It's got lots of detail with vents and ports throughout. The forward area with engine intakes, guns and a translucent cockpit are particularly nice. Sharp-eyed fans will note the "301" on the tail, which is a deep cut. It follows the naming convention from the Heart of the Tiger novelization where Blair is assigned Thunderbolt 300. Check out the rest of his gorgeous art here.

I tried to stay close to the previous Longbow design esthetics wise and I think it turned out all right.

Always liked this fighter, albeit not so nimble it had a powerful punch and a rear turret against those Kilrathi that outmaneuvered me. This and the Arrow were for me the favorite craft you could fly in Wing Commander 3.

Seeing that someone was, again, so kind to provide me with a core membership I

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Found this in the guts of Wing Commander Armada today! Looks like an early game select menu mock-up. The ship art is from Academy, WC2 and Privateer! That’s a Privateer Gothri.

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Artist and designer Mike Winterbauer is well known for his classic '80s and '90s art that graced the covers of a wide variety of media. He's recently arranged some of the most famous examples to show off the variety of bespoke typefaces that he drew by hand. These include the nameplates for both Wing Commander and The Secret Missions for SNES. It's well documented how he made the whole box art for the SNES WC1, but his SM contribution is news to us! The central sketch for the game was made by Greg Winters.

Some of the cool hand painted game box titles I did in the early 1990s!#illustration #popculture #movieart #boxartBen “LOAF” LesnickWonderful! I did not know that you had done the titles for The Secret Missions.Mike WinterbauerYes I did, I was disappointed I did not get to paint the box cover.

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Here's a whole pile of 3D-printed carriers by Knight26-77. It's got your main classics from WC1-3 and their associated novels. I'm thinking the Victory is my favorite, but it's not a bad Concordia either!

Have some carrier love for you today along with some same scale comparisons.

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It's been a good month for fans of Wing Leader! Howard Day has another new ship and a handful of new prototype features to share. First up is the Strakha stealth fighter. It's inspired by Arne's Android Arts sketch of the ship with some additional WC3 elements brought in. Howie's also recorded several videos that show off new features such a cloaking effect to complement the new Strakha. There's also a preliminary communications systems that allow the pilots to talk with each other. On the graphical side, separate visual effects for project impacts against the hull rather than shields have been added, among other similar tweaks that make the gunplay pop.

So now that the Strakha is done, I needed to work on the Cloaking effect. Solution? Cloaking Devices for everyone! Wheee! Eventually, the drive flares will be hidden as well. I also re-figured out how to capture Wingleader properly in 60fps, so I

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Shared from the ex-Origin Facebook: an invitation to the 1994 Wing Commander III launch party! I do not know who the artist is. It seems to be signed Amy—perhaps Amy Adams (Crusader series, Wing Commander Prophecy, art lead for an attempt at Privateer Online)?