Ascii Sector Adds Fleets

A new version of Ascii Sector has been released! This is the first edition to drop the 'Privateer' off the name. So far only the title has changed, but eventually Chris Knudsen plans to branch the story off and differentiate the game from its Wing Commander roots. One big addition for version 0.7 is the creation of fleets that persist, control systems and rove the sector. Confed and Pirate factions exist now. Retro and Kilrathi will come in a future update. You can download the game here.

- Wingmen shouldn't get involved in dogfights with friendly ships because of accidental fire as often anymore.
- Improved friendly fire checks so that only weapons fire from a hostile ship will impact a target. This applies to the player's AI controlled turrets as well.
- Added persistent fleets that can move around, change control of systems, engage enemy fleets, head back for repairs and rebuilds, and so on (currently only the Confeds and Pirates have fleets, but the Retros and Kilrathi will also get fleets in future versions).
- Randomly generated ships are now based on the factions controlling the various systems as well as some other factors. The control of systems is displayed on the system maps in the Quine and nav computer.
- Swapped the faction colors of Militia and Retros: Retros are now purple and Militia are white. This is in preparation for Retros having fleets and taking control of systems and white not being a good color for showing system control on the maps.
- Changed game name from "Privateer: Ascii Sector" to just "Ascii Sector".
- New icons and logo.
- Updated the manual with the new name and logo.

Wing Commander IV Storyboards - Scene 62

Scene 62 - Blair meets Dr. Brody (cartoon Maniac is right, cartoon Dr. Brody is pretty!) and sits down to watch Admiral Tolwyn on the news. I think this is another slight flaw with Wing Commander IV's narrative--we're supposed to remember such a slight interaction as Brody brushing against Blair four or five CDs later when we meet her again at Axius.

These storyboard images were recovered from a backup CD containing materials belonging to Origin's web development team. They were dated November 17, 1995 and were likely planned for a never-completed web feature.