Of the fighters in WC1 and SM1, I consider the Gratha the most troublesome. In-universe, everyone panics about the Jalthi and its massive set of guns, but it's easy to dodge. The Gratha is just a little better at aiming, and a little harder to destroy. In practice, this means that you can...

For some of us, the problem with Saga is that many decisions we make in flight are not meaningful either. Confed ships explode, not because of bad flying, but because the script says they will. Kilrathi ships often only explode when the script lets them, too. Invincible Terran ships trade...

Wow, that's an epic finish. The later games never quit duplicated that feeling of limping home in a Scimitar with no armor and seven different systems reporting damage... Destroying an ace (and the SM2 Drakhai take the place of the WC1 aces) can indeed cause other Kilrathi to retreat. It's...

Sorry, you're quite right. There is no Fralthi in the mission, and you have to destroy the Snakeir. This breaks the existing "rules" of patrol missions in Wing Commander, where you "win" by visiting all nav points, and may be chewed out for engaging the tougher capital ships. You want to...

Yes, your problem was in Firekka 3. Missions in WC1 and WC2 are grouped into series of 2 to 4. Each time you change wingman, your missions in the entire previous series are evaluated to determine where you go next. So, both your missions with Knight determine where you go after Firekka 4. As...

Is there anything to suggest that this post on the thread you mention was written by the Erick Hansen referenced in the article? Because that would lie smack at the intersection between pathetic and hilarious. I know a good con can convince you the sky is green, but I'm disappointed that so...

First, try slowing the whole game down. The GoG DOSBox version defaults to 4,000 cycles, but I find WC1 unplayable above 3,300 cycles. The games are difficult in different ways. WC1 is mostly a targetting challenge. Lead your target, fire a burst, evade while your energy regenerates, repeat...

DOSBox I run WC1 at 3,000 or 3,300 cycles. Even 4,000 - which I think is the default for the GoG installation - is too fast for me. Control No questions, the mouse controls in the early Wing Commanders are badly implemented. Like -danr-, I've always played with keyboard, and I find WC1...

I didn't "forget" so much as "was completely ignorant of its existence", so thank you for letting me know about it. It looks like a neat part of IPX networking history. And, it certainly has every feature that Guinness defined for "first 3D space combat video game to feature multiplayer...

The title of the second record seems absurd - why do we need specific records for games set in space? Anyway, if we must have a record for "First multiplayer space combat game", it should be Spacewar! for the PDP-1 (1962). The people who wrote the complete record description did add "3D", so...

Neat explanation. How many copies of "Christopher Blair" took part in the war? Did most of the "winning path" and "losing path" missions happen simultaneously? Definitely true. If building a fighter and training its pilot is expensive - not to mention the cost of shipping them out to the...

Here are some ways that a "realistic" war in space in the 27th century might look: Spacecraft will not have windows - everyone will see the battlefield as a visualisation. Decisions like targetting and firing will be automated. Most vehicles will be fully-automated drones. If humans have any...

I agree with all of this. (Not that all games should work this way - you could make a functional space simulator with survival horror design choices - but that these are essential to the atmosphere of a Wing Commander game.) In addition to that, I think that the implementation of wingmen is...

[I edited my post to tidy up the attachments, and the "last image" is no longer there. The picture -danr- is in the WC2 (VDU.V00) group, second to last picture.] Thanks, I'd forgotten about Series 2 Mission A (Canewdon system). You're also correct that Crossbones and Talon use the generic...

Well, we know from the VDU graphics that the WC1 and WC2 pilots have callsigns (and, in a few cases, thematically appropriate symbols) on their helmets. See here for the WC1 versions, Maniac's and Hunter's original call-signs, and the files to find them in. Here are the WC2 helmets from...

The faces that appear on your right VDU have independent helmet graphics with names on them. The helmets used in the cockpit are generic - you can find them in the file HELMET.V00. The text has to suit every pilot, so they went with something blurred. I agree that it looks like it started as...

You have to select when you download, but you only ever pay once. If a game has files for multiple operating systems, the GOG download page for that game will offer tabs for those operating systems. This will default to the OS you are currently using, but you can choose a different OS if you...

What about Frontier: Elite II? (Possibly also other games in the Elite series; I only ever played Frontier). Your hull has a mass limit. Every component takes up mass. If you're trying to trade, everything you load up with - autopilot, atmospheric shielding, cargo bay life support - means you...

Funny you should mention Comanche Maximum Overkill. Apart from the voxel terrain, it did the multi-part bitmaps trick. It's most obviously used to have moving rotors on the helicopters, including the two counter-rotating rotors on the Kamov Ka-50 "Werewolf". The tanks and missile launchers...

I always was impressed by the way that the exhausts in WC1 and WC2 displayed independently - so yes, it's hardly surprising if it's fiddly to get them positioned right. Looking at some specifications on IFF, you're quite right, and it's the same format used SERIES.S??, CAMPAIGN.S?? and...