News from Bot

  • 05

    Nov

    The Wing Commander series has a long history of drawing on familiar people and places when it needs to create new names. Some can be pretty unique one-off jokes, references or combinations of things, so when we see something in external media that happens to overlap with WC, it always gives us pause! The manual to Wing Commander Academy mentions Gorath as the site of a major Crossbow action. LOAF recently saw that that's also a the name of a famous 1962 Japanese sci-fi film!

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    Oooooooh!
  • 03

    Nov

    Salvage Tug History

  • 02

    Nov

  • 31

    Oct

  • 31

    Oct

    The first run of Mandalay ships has been delivered to shipyards across the core systems and are now available for purchase.
    Zorgon Peterson's Mandalay is the third new vessel to be optimised for Achilles Aerospace's SCO frame shift drive – following the Python Mk. II and the Type-8 - and aims to become the premier medium-sized exploration craft.
    Chief Marketing Officer Devin Kaneda sent a press statement to all shipyard outlets:
    "The Mandalay allows pilots to achieve a considerable jump range while maintaining the manoeuverability of its size class, expanding the range of future exploration voyages of its size class. Our technicians have ensured that the ship's handling in atmospheric conditions is exceptional, easing the travel down to undiscovered worlds."
    "A rethink of structural stress resistance, in cooperation with Achilles engineers, has resulted in the Mandalay taking full advantage of

  • 31

    Oct

  • 30

    Oct

    This Border Worlds outpost is present in Wing Commander IV's files and complete with damage states... but it doesn't appear in the game and it's not clear what it might've been intended for!

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    Wing Commander IV features a lot of bases -- in fact, it has more space stations than the original game had fighters. What it doesn't have is a Border Worlds base... even when you're ordered to rescue the biochemist from the Border Worlds, you do it by landing marines on a Confederation space lab. It looks like they had originally planned to rectify that, though -- with the Union of Border Worlds Outpost.
  • 30

    Oct

    A prominent figure in the treasure hunting community has gone missing, prompting speculation as to his fate.
    Herman Colt, known for recovering several notable historical artefacts across the core systems, departed the Frenis system three weeks ago along with several other pilots. It is believed Colt's latest expedition sought the final treasure hoard of Captain Morrigan, a fearsome pirate active in the mid-3200's.
    Rewired spoke to a colleague of Colt's, Natasha Moore, for an insight into Colt's whereabouts:
    "It's unlike Colt to maintain radio silence during an expedition. In fact, it's fair to say he loves the attention. Each new expedition generates buzz among the exploration community, with dozens of pilots begging to be taken along for the adventure."
    "Colt has a soft spot for Captain Morrigan – I think he's already got some bits and pieces from her life on display at his home. I know he

  • 29

    Oct

    confederation_engine_art1t.gifAllTinker was recently asked how the Confederation project to modify and enhance the original Wing Commander was coming along. As we know, he has a lot of irons in the fire and is working on incredible WC series reverse engineering and exploration on many fronts. Despite these competing demands, he's very close to an updated release for WC1. Here's some more tantalizing information:

    I've been working away on a bunch of cool stuff - I'm close to being finished with my first pass at the 3D cockpits, and some further experimentation with 3D ships (from a voxel workflow, but trying to produce non-blocky models). I'm hoping my next update will show some or all of that in actual gameplay, with the first release not far behind.

    I've been working on some non-Confederation (and non-Originator) stuff too... Which brings me to: So for years before Confederation, and in the meantime since, I've made numerous

  • 29

    Oct

    Boxography has posted a fun video where they go through and unbox the contents of the original Wing Commander. We've seen a few of these pop up in recent years, and this one is great because the narrator lovingly examines each piece with such care. He mentions that he's actually a relatively new fan of the series, but the whole clip just highlights what a timeless classic the game is. Check it out below!

    Ship specs, blueprints, an in-universe military magazine, some lore sidebars, and more. Origin went all-out on the contents in this box.

    You can also follow Boxography on Instagram.

  • 27

    Oct

    Wing Commander Prophecy’s C-9 Pelican transport, from proposal to sketch up to cinematic model to game mesh! Too bad we didn’t get the TRANS CO sign on the tower in the final version! The cine version has some nice detailed cargo pods, too.

    pelican-do1t.jpgpelican-do2t.jpgwcp_pelican_conf_transxt.jpgpelican-do3t.jpgpelican-do4t.jpgThe Pelican has a cameo in Wing Commander Arena, too! The Boneyard map has a derelict Pelican (with Centurions spilling out of it!).

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  • 25

    Oct

    Titan Raijin in the Pegasi Sector IH-U b3-3 system has been destroyed, leaving only Cocijo still operational.
    Aden Tanner, anti-xeno strategist for Aegis, provided a brief statement:
    "My heart still soars to hear that another Titan has been taken down. Until very recently, these colossal constructs were seen as indestructible. Aegis was even drawing up long-term strategies based around them being permanently present in human space. The Guardian nanite torpedo, and the hard work of so many pilots, has made that academic."
    "Anti-xeno pilots are already travelling to the systems surrounding Col 285 Sector BA-P c6-18, to repeat the process one last time on Titan Cocijo. With such a concentrated effort, it is not expected to last long. However, I must repeat my earlier call for caution and preparedness. We cannot tell how the Thargoids will respond to the loss of their last mothership, and we may

  • 25

    Oct

    Awesome resource via Dennie Edwards! I found Wing Commander III in the 1996 catalog. And Strike Commander in 1993, which was the result of a boots-on-the-ground sales campaign from Origin that got massive preorder numbers for Strike (on the back of WC1's smash hit status) from Radio Shack and Walmart.

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    RadioShackCatalogs is an excellent resource for nostalgia-craving tech fans! The site offers high quality scans of 66 years worth of Radio Shack catalog. We've done the hard work for you, though, and have located the one listing for a Wing Commander game: Wing Commander III in the 1996 catalog! Chris Roberts' Strike Commander appears in the 1993 catalog, which was at the time an especially important new distribution deal for Origin.
  • 25

    Oct

    While taking apart Wing Commander Arena I discovered that there are four different wrecked fighter models in the Boneyard map!

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    Charon System — The Boneyard

    Welcome to hell! The Boneyard is the largest debris field in the sector. It began in 2655 when the Tiger’s Claw squadron fought a hard retreat through the area, riddling the asteroid belt with military debris. Since that time, it has come to encompass thousands of derelict ships and millionsof asteroids. The Boneyard is for expert pilots only: success here requires that a pilot navigate between rocks and through the channels and tunnels that riddle larger planetoids. It’s also an excellent chance to turn a profit as the field is littered with useful salvage and even the rocks themselves are overflowing with priceless Gotherian crystals.

    Analysis: In an example of galactic irony the home of the hellish boneyard is also the location of the largest

  • 24

    Oct

  • 24

    Oct

    Modern Vintage Gamer has done a wonderful retrospective on the original Wing Commander from the perspective of 2024. The channel has a huge reach and the video has been seen some 80,000 times in just its first day. Since a lot of these will be younger viewers, the clip provides some vital context for how groundbreaking the game was when it arrived in 1990. The narrator walks through all of the features and highlights and even details how several WC1 ports differ, which is always nice to see. Check it out below!

    Wing Commander is a 3D Space Combat Simulator game that released on the IBM PC in 1990 - over 34 years ago as of this episode - and it one of the finest games ever made. It took advantage of the IBM PC to maximize the immersion of a space combat simulation. Its game design had no equal. In today's episode we take a closer look at how Wing Commander came to be, its technology, game design,