If I remember correctly, in Wing Commander 1 you accumulated "victory points" for a series based on your actions during that series. Kills were worth so many points, finishing mission objectives so many points, etc. If you had gathered enough points by the end of the series to advance along the winning path, that's where you went. Otherwise you headed down the losing path. In some cases, things were set up so that failing a single mission doomed you to the losing path.
Wing Commander I tracks two different types of numbers during a mission. One has been named 'victory points' and the other 'medal points.'
Victory points are what determines whether or not a mission and the overall series is won, and they do not take into account kills... only specific mission objectives.
For example, for the game's first series (Enyo):
Enyo 1 has six victory points:
- Visit Nav 1 (2 points)
- Visit Nav 2 (1 point)
- Visit Nav 3 (1 point)
- Land (1 point)
To win the mission you need all six points.
Enyo 2 has nine victory points:
- Visit Nav 1 (2 points)
- Visit Nav 2 (2 points)
- Drayman jumps out (5 points)
And to win this mission you need FIVE victory points. Which means you can win if (somehow) the Drayman survives but you don't actually visit the nav points.
These points are cumulative for the series. To 'win' the Enyo series and move on to McAuliffe (instead of Gateway, the losing series) you need eleven out of the fifteen possible points, in any combination. Which means you could theoretically, say, lose mission 1 by only visiting one nav point... but then get all the points in mission 2 and still win the series.
I explain all this because someone mentioned points for kills and so on earlier. Wing Commander I ALSO tracks these points, commonly 'medal points,' in order to determine whether you get a promotion or a medal. Chances at promotions are random, medals are specific to missions. In the Enyo series discussed above, it's possible to get a Bronze Star if you score 52 medal points in the second mission.
Medal points are:
Salthi - 7
Dralthi/Krant - 10
Gratha/Jalthi/Hhriss - 15
Dorkir/Lumbari - 15
Ralari - 25
Fralthi - 50
Snakeir - 70
Star Post - 75
Confederation Ship Saved - 25
Confederation Ship Shot Down - -1
... which means that the possible medal points for Enyo 2 are...
Salthi x2 - 14 points
Dralthi x3 - 30 points
Save the Drayman - 25
For a total of 69 possible! So it works out that you HAVE to save the Drayman (25) and then shoot down at least three of the five fighters yourself to earn the medal.
Bear in mind, those figures are for the original game; whether or not they still apply to Super Wing Commander is another matter. I imagine they do; my understanding is that Super Wing Commander is just the original game with updated graphics.
Super Wing Commander does indeed function the same as Wing Commander I in this respect, although to the best of my knowledge no one has ever charted out exactly what the victory and medal points for the SM1.5 missions are. Note that in general the "Secret Missions" missions have much higher standards than the regular game owing to the fact that they were designed for 'expert' players and that there's no tiered tree of losing missions to fall back on.
It's not EXACTLY Wing Commander I with updated graphics... there are a good number of changes, mostly to make it easier to play on a console (ie, the comm system is now a pause menu instead of something you do with a VDU in-flight.) There were also minor changes to missions, different cutscenes (at different places) and dialogue that was updated in various ways (largely to prequel Super Wing Commander 2, so you get chatter about Tolwyn and stealth fighters.)
Cool, and does this system hold true for the other games, like 3,4, and prophecy?
No, the later games are a little simpler. They tend to have particular victory conditions. They can be a bit obscure in Wing Commander II (there's one example where you HAVE to kill a particular Kamekh to win a series for some reason) and then in later games are usually along the lines of that you need to win certain important missions.