Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've finished a long-awaited addition to the WCPedia: a complete collection of screenshots showing all 233 Privateer 2: The Darkening News Bulletins! We've also included game-extracted text, scans from the official guide and new info and nav boxes to make exploring them much easier. Privateer 2 players may remember the bulletins as the system by which the game offers big changes to commodity prices. One is selected each time you land and available in the Booth. Some of them are tabloid articles, some are advertisements and some mark changes to pricing because of current events (a flood might reduce the price of water on a certain planet and so on). Many people don't pay attention to the text in Privateer 2 and I think that's a mistake: the game's designers wrote a fat novel worth of text for the Booth and the various missions and it expands the Tri-System and the Wing Commander universe in so many

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation Alert*
The Pilots' Federation has confirmed that members are now authorised to enter the HIP 87621 system, following months of speculation and political wrangling.
This unprecedented decision grants exclusive access to licensed Commanders, with civilian, corporate and government organisations still restricted from entering the system.
October Consortium officials explained apparent inconsistencies between previously available system data and actual astrometric data as "spoofing", citing "security and scientific integrity" as major reasons. They have also confirmed placing a permanent exclusion on fleet carriers entering the system under the same basis.
Scientists believe the plant's unusual biological markers may explain the long-range scan anomalies that first drew attention to the system.
Commanders who have already ventured into HIP 87621 report the discovery of an

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a fun discovery: a game preservation group has posted a prototype copy of Wing Commander Prophecy on the Internet Archive! It includes all three discs complete with high resolution scans. They have a great writeup of what's included in the readme with details which you can find below. Since this looks to be a review copy sent out only a week before the game was finished it's likely not too different from the final release. But when it comes to studying this kind of history... every bit helps! (Please laugh.) We've mirrored a copy here.

=========================== Wing Commander: Prophecy ===========================
-------------------------- (1997-12-02 PC prototype) ---------------------------

Dumped By: Cut Into Fourteen Pieces

Released By: CVLT OF OSIRIS

CVLT OF OSIRIS presents a prototype of Wing Commander: Prophecy for the PC

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Eddie Rickenharp is mini-mono artist who has attained megastar status and is best known for repopularizing his genre of music. In 2669, Rickenharp agreed to perform for Confederation forces on Bistango X in a spectacular concert amidst the planet's ancient art treasures. The Kilrathi launched a surprise assault on the planet during the concert which killed thousands and left the artwork in ruins. Rickenharp was badly wounded in the attack and left in critical condition.

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Last time we looked at tHE lOVE aNIMALS, a band introduced in Wing Commander III that doing a TCSO-style performance for the troops. But Wing Commander III actually introduces a second artist with the same setup: "megastar" Eddie Rickenharp. He also has a fictional-but-familiar-seeming genre, "mini mono" and you get the sense that he's some kind of Steven Tyler-style aging superstar in 2669. Rickenharp appears in two of the TCN

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Brewer Corporation has labelled the withdrawal of its Trailblazer megaship fleet as a 'vote of confidence' in the self-sustainability of thousands of new colonies.
The Trailblazer vessels were originally deployed to provide logistical support and essential resources to independent colonisation initiatives at the edge of inhabited space and are now being refit for deployment for other purposes.
"The success of the Trailblazer fleet will leave its mark in the history books of human colonisation," Mark Rennik, Chief Operating Officer for Brewer Corporation commented.
"And now, once the crews have taken a well-deserved rest and the internals are refit, they will continue to serve the Brewer Corporation in other duties."
To reinforce the message, Rennik also announced the availability of the newly commissioned Dodec starports for colonisation efforts, which can be built at any available Tier 3 port

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This is the kind of surprise we like: gr1mre4per is back with a brand new version of Prophecy Unlimited, the first release since 2019! The past five or six years did kind of run together! Prophecy Unlimited and its assosciated OpenGL patch form the framework for a lot of the modern enhancements to Wing Commander Prophecy... so it's great to see development continue! You can download a copy of Prophecy Unlimited version 6.1 here. The patch notes follow:

### WCPUNL Beta 6.1
Support for both CD and GoG installations using the prophecy.exe supplied in this package. A CD check is done, if no CD is found a local file check is performed. If no local files found, Change CD screen will appear.

### WCPUNL Beta 6.0
Fixed memory leak in the new Movie Player Turret barrel fire respects wcpunl.ini setting again File loading priority changed so directory has priority over tree file (no need to patch data.tre anymore)