New Fan Art Highlights Galaxy Hauler

Today we have a new take on Privateer's Galaxy spacecraft, one of the larger vessels WC fans get to pilot. This one was built by Pedro Ambrosi in Blender. A handful of blue tints and highlights have been added, which give it some nice contrast compared to the fairly monochromatic version we see in the game. It also has a bit of a metallic sheen. All of the major elements are well represented, from the top and bottom turrets to the maneuvering thrusters to the inward cant of the upper engine nacelles. The fiery glow of all the engine nozzles is also a nice touch!

This is a Little Pet Project of mine: Galaxy Ship from WC: Privateer.

Hope you like it.

'Lordy! It's a fully rendered craft...'

Here's a preview of Wing Commander 3 that I don't think we've seen before. In the days before most people had internet access, articles like these were the main way that people got an early look at upcoming games. From the fiery color mix to chain link border, it screams mid '90s aesthetic and brings back many exciting memories. If mag scans like this make you nostalgic for a different time, check out the Gamemaster Said Twitter feed!

Issue 25, January 1995: Wing Commander 3 preview (PC): “The interactive movie is here! Or at least that’s what Electronic Arts would have us believe.”

Kilrathi Lurk In The Shadows

Here's an idle weekend observation that might blow a few minds. LOAF keeps one of the slick fiery logo Wing Commander Movie Posters hung above his desk, and after countless hours staring at it, he just realized that a large Kilrathi head looms in the background. Wow! I have to admit I never noticed it either, although AD points out that it's also visible in the French and Spanish advertisements for the film. It's definitely easier to spot on the version for France due to how the image is cropped and the text is superimposed. The more you know... (and even without the giant Kat, it's a darn cool poster!)

banditloaf: It took me sixteen years to realize there's a Kilrathi face at the top!

MUSH Adventures Highlighted in New Fan Fiction Push

We've been highlighting Wingnuts' recent efforts to bring back fan fiction, and Iceblade noticed the similar lack of text-based roleplay in today's fan projects. There's the From the Ashes forums RPG, but none of the old Wing Commander MUSHes, MUDs or MUXes are still operating out there. So he's taken to posting some of the prior adventures of the Gemini Sector MUSH to the CIC Fan Fiction Forum. Even if you're not into actively playing text-based adventures, there's some good stories here!

Foreward: The Wing Commander Gemini Sector MUSH was a Multi-User Shard Habitat set aboard the Bengal Class Strike Carrier TCS Majestic in the year 2657. Seeking to break the stalemate, the Kilrathi launched a surprise offensive through the edge of Terran-controlled space in Gemini Sector. A tenacious counteroffensive has blunted the Kilrathi assault. This MUSH featured both a tough struggle with a massive Kilrathi force in front and a morass of corruption and piracy behind.

While the story interactions weren't persistent, most clients used to access the server come with logging systems. The roleplaying sessions were usually taken from these logs and posted to the MUSH-related wiki. While these logs have remained online thus far, the age of these wiki sites has left me concerned that the host will disappear. So I am posting these logs here as a story. I also think that these logs will prove interesting for some here.

Tiger's Claw Fighters Ready to Sit-'n-Kick

Rigging the Hornet for action. Lights, camera, thrusters!

For my version (emphasis mine, this is non-cannon, of course) of the WC universe, the idea is that all ships have a limited form of non inertial drive, but it's limited to 2-5 gees based on reactor power vs ship mass. (Lighter ships built around big reactors can achieve greater maneuverability at the cost of payload armor and reaction mass) For higher accelerations (Afterburner) you have to burn propellant through your fighter's hot nuclear reactor. This gives the ships the ability for planetary VTOL as seen in WC2-4, and justifies (barely) the existence of light fighters vs just firing a bunch of AI driven missile busses. Ships with inertial-less drive can usually always recover, provided the mothership isn't too far away or moving too fast by comparison.

For larger ships it gets exponentially harder to accelerate using large masses using the (let's call it the repulsor drive) over 1.5 gees. So you typically use the drive for maneuvering and working gravity for the crew, but still have to burn reaction mass by passing it through your reactor to move the ship anywhere useful. Thus you get slower maneuvering capital ships, quick fighters with fuel limitations. RCS thrusters are used during recovery and hard manuvers because it looks cool. Otherwise you're flying on the inertial drive. (Or Repulsorlifts, if you check the WC3 checklist. They're somewhere after Batman's Atomic Batteries and Turbines.)

This is my full-of-holes working theory, anyway. Spacefighters are more the realm of science fantasy, but I like to have a LITTLE justification here and there in the space-going-aircraft-carrier-analogy-thing. :)

On the other end of the spectrum is the Scimitar. Very few RCS thrusters, but great big impulse pods to maneuver the mass of the ship around, and, presumably, a big reactor(s).

Last Word: Thanks

I hope you have enjoyed all of the material available today. It has been a busy year for lots of reasons, but as the community continues to find time for Wing Commander regardless of the impact of real life so always will I. A genuine thanks to the thousands of Wing Commander fans everywhere who continue to make this the best community in the world. You are the series' legacy, and the friendships you continue and the content you generate makes any effort at running the CIC worthwhile.

WCNews.com could not exist without the best staff in the universe: Chris Reid's fiery dedication, AD's dogged determination, KrisV's technical genius and everything added by the rest of the team. And the group of fans who regularly contribute to the news and the community grows every year. Today we should pay special thanks to Sherlock, NinjaLA, Jetlag, bob and Whistler for making today's event possible.

And a final, perennial thank you to the developers at Origin and elsewhere who made the history we now celebrate. Their passion and kindness over the years has elated all this immensely. On to 2014!

CSMs Are Your New Best Friend

Progress continues to be made on capi's Wing Commander RPG. The main game is still under massive proofreading, although about two-thirds of this has now been completed. There haven't been many major changes, but information such as interaction with capship missiles is being added in order to support some cool new mission variants.

The RPG's new Vespus campaign now has a formal Wiki page, and the preliminary missions outlined there sound really neat. In addition to addressing the Concordia's fate, there's some exciting setup for Wing Commander 3 at the end. The intent of the game is ultimately to entertain fans, and capi is doing a great job soliciting feedback from potential players. You can join in on the conversation at the CIC Forums.

Had a thought for the first mission today - we've all had to do those gawdawful capship missile interception missions. You know, where the Cats have launched way more many missiles than they should've had available to them and you have to shoot them all down because if you let so much as a single one through your carrier explodes in a big fiery ball that's visible from the next star system over, a virulent plague breaks out that renders the entire Sector uninhabitable until after the heat death of the universe, and the gods of Wing Commander sneak into your house in the middle of the night to fill your shoes with Miracle Whip. Right?

So how about a gawdawful capship missile escort mission? Stick it to the Cats for once, eh? Eh?

-----------------------------

The work plan's still moving along. My immediate goals are to finish up the remaining race profiles. I'm thinking that I'd like to keep some of the momentum I've got going and I know it's going to come to a screeching halt when I hit the next big page, so I'm thinking this week I'm going to try to isolate and finish as many of the remaining small sections of the game as I can.

It has been suggested to me that I try to make WCRPG an offering for the upcoming Free RPG Day (June 15th this year); given that I'd have to have the game to the press by May 15th to have it ready in time and that's only 64 days off at this point, I doubt that will happen. You never know, though...

Kilrah's Demise Sketched Out

Kilrah in its final moments

Wing Commander Goes Boom the Best

Wing Commander: Opening Fight With Spirit

Let's Scramble!

All space combat lovers remember Wing Commander. What they remember more is trying to fly for the first time. You take out your fighter with Spirit, a fellow pilot whose honor is apparently "to obey".

Once you get the hang of Wing Commander flying is a breeze, but that first time out in space against enemy ships sure was a pain. That is, until you finally destroyed a ship, which resulted in an unbridled amount of happiness.

Looking For Potential MUSHers

An Ode to Admiral Tolwyn

I Am the Very Model of a Modern Confed Admiral

An Ode to Admiral Tolwyn

By The Plywood Fiend

I am the very model of a modern Confed Admiral
I've information genocidal, tactical and fallible
I know the Lords of Kilrah and cause Defcoms unimaginable
Through covert ops and bombing runs in numbers quite uncountable.

I'm very well acquainted too with phallic-shaped doomsday machines
If Behemoth had working shields it would have swept the Kat world's clean.
I wanted to laugh manically while marching down the Kilrah road,
Instead I could do nothing except watch my bloody ship explode.

Instead he could do nothing except watch his bloody ship explode.
Instead he could do nothing except watch his bloody ship explode.
Instead he could do nothing except watch his bloody ship exploderode.

The truth is that we won the war thanks only to a twist of fate
But I’ll make sure we are prepared when foul beasties next charge the gate
In short, in matters genocidal, tactical, and fallible
I am the very model of a modern Confed Admiral

In short, in matters genocidal, tactical, and fallible
He is the very model of a modern Confed Admiral.

I'll gather to my banner an army of enhanced ruffians
And arm them with floating disk-shaped uncouth fiery doom-weapons
In order to ensure unending Confederate dominance
I'll order my children to torch the innocent and defenseless

After which I’ll start spinning lies to cover up my nasty schemes
And get my mutant soldiers finding a strong Alpha-male in me.
The Border Worlds shall take the blame for every evil thing I do
I dare say they're a waste of space, I’d quite like to wipe them out too.

He dares say they're a waste of space, he'd quite like to wipe them out too.
He dares say they're a waste of space, he'd quite like to wipe them out too.
He dares say they're a waste of space, he'd quite like to wipe them out too-ooo-ooo

So I shall write a stirring speech and trick congress to vote for war
And charge towards the Border Worlds intending to destroy them all
In short, in matters genocidal, tactical, and fallible
I am the very model of a modern Confed Admiral

In short, in matters genocidal, tactical, and fallible
He is the very model of a modern Confed Admiral

In fact, when I know not what's meant by 'Piranha' and 'Nephilim'
But I can tell at sight, a damaged thruster valve from Paladin
When such concepts as mercy and compassion, I’ve lost interest for,
And when I know in secret what is meant by 'Viking space-warlord'.

When I have learnt what progress has been made with bio-convergence
When I use this knowledge to cull the weak and less-than-pure humans
In short, when I have overthrown this nauseating galaxy...
You'll probably not say much because odds are you'll be dead, you see?

You'll probably not say much because odds are you'll be dead, you see?
You'll probably not say much because odds are you'll be dead, you see?
You'll probably not say much because odds are you'll be dead, you see-eee-eee-eeehee?

For my military knowledge, since I'm evil and your enemy,
Has only been enhanced by the sad thinning of my sanity,
As such, in matters genocidal, tactical, and fallible
I am the very model of a modern Confed Admiral.

As such, in matters genocidal, tactical, and fallible
He is the very model of a modern Confed Admiral.

Alternate Origin Logo Extracted

While searching through files for his WCIV movie project, AD came across an alternate version of the Origin logo that plays at the beginning of WCIV. Here we give you both for comparison purposes. One is fiery, the other is less so. It's possible that one was used in different regions.

Fiery Ardor Now Accepting Players

The Wing Commander MUSH Fiery Ardor is now accepting players. We mentioned last month that they were looking for staff members to polish things to a play-ready state. Although there are still a number of things to implement, you can join the game, create a player and role play a bit. Complete space combat is yet to come, but a large part of this game is character development and that is ready to go.

We're quite a bit along now. So much so, most of the staff agrees that we can now accept players. Only catch is that the space combat code is not 100 percent complete yet. Regardless, the areas and everything else are pretty much done. So if you just want to hang out and RP or even just chat, Character Creation is now unlocked and folks can go through.

Our site host is: ardormush.quackster.net
Port is: 8888

WC Fiery Ardor MUSH Needs Staff

There's a Wing Commander MUSH by the name of Fiery Ardor that's been secretly under construction for the past four months. It's a text based role playing game. They're getting to the point where they'll soon have a bunch to show off and are looking for some additional staff to help fill in the gaps. Here's Ierocis with the request.

Unlike other WC MUSHes or MUXes in the past, Fiery Ardor focuses on character development and life of Terran Confederation Military personnel during the Kilrathi/Terran war. Therefore heavily coded combat is not as important as good RPing with one another. Most of the action will take place on the Ranger-class Light Carrier, TCS Ardor and it's carrier task group.

As we near the end of construction phase we could do with a wee bit of help to fill staff positions to help supply storyline for the MUSH, and finish off odd jobs like fancying up the webpage. If you are interested in checking us out and lending us a hand you can reach us via telnet, simpleMU, MUSHclient, or other MU client at:

HOST: ardormush.quackster.net
PORT: 8888