[Admiral Nelson]

Wing Commander IV Demo

The war between the alien Kilrathi Empire and the Terran Confederation has been over for several years. Confed is attempting to stabilize its economy and social structure. The Kilrathi survivors, now led by Melek nar Kiranka, retainer to the late Prince Thrakhath, are having greater problems than they had during the war, since their racial and societal makeup revolves around hunting and killing. Tension between the Confederation and the Union of Border Worlds has deepened, most recently with an attack on an unarmed medical transport.

The WC Saga team created this demo  of a few Wing Commander IV missions in the FSO engine to help promote their mod back in 2007.  It is still a fun little mod, so here it is refreshed for use with the FSO build of WC Saga!

IMPORTANT NOTE
This campaign uses the older style of waypoint navigation in which one first selects the waypoint with ALT-N and then ALT-A to activate the autopilot

1) INSTALLATION

The WC IV Demo is now available on Knossos for automated installation.

Alternatively,
* Extract the "WCIV_core.7z" file to your freespace folder.  Then extract the contents of all the Movies 7z file to the "WCIV_Demo" subfolder.
* Select the mod "Wing Commander IV" via your FSOpen mod launcher.


2) CREDITS

WCSaga team - Original concept and campaign
Admiral Nelson - Patch to standard FSO as documented below
FrikgFeek - Testing
Nyctaeus - Durango model cleanup and shield mesh creation

3) CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE

Conversion to standard FSO
Additional intro video
Minor FRED bugfixes
Spelling fixes
Moved to autopilot takeoff and landings instead of player controlled as in WC3

5) DOWNLOAD

WCIV Movies (589 MB)
WCIV Core Files (36 MB)

[FekLeyrTarg]

Nice.
I've wanted to see these missions ported over to the full-version of WCS for a long time now.

By the way: DefianceIndustries has rebuilt almost all Confed, Border Worlds and Black Lance assets from WC4 for use in "Flag Commander" and other projects.
Perhabs his models could be converted for FSO if he's ok with that.

https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/defiances-eyecandy-thread.27888/

[Deathsnake]

https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=71822.0

Would like to see Starmans Models in this mod. The ships are Saga ready but was not textured :/ I don't know if he is still around here.

[Deathsnake]

Thx to FekLeyrTarg he still have the files Starman send me.

It is the
Banshee
Vindicator
Avenger
Intrepid
the Kilrathi fighter
and the Tarawa.

All CoB files and not textured. I don't know if someone could finish the models for me and sure could use it for this mod. The Models also need first UV Mapping what I heard is the hardest challenge.

[Colonol Dekker]

All you need is scooby do stuff.

[Deathsnake]

Thats it. Starman uses Scooby Stuff to build the ships.

I still hoping for a Saga Style Exeter and Waterloo

[praseodym]

First post reads "36 GB"! It may frighten some of us...

[Admiral Nelson]

Oops. Fixed.

[OverDhill]

Alternatively,
* Extract the "hermes_core.7z" file to your freespace folder.

Do you mean WCIV Core Files?

[Novachen]

I was unable to download the Movie Files on Knossos. Maybe this is caused by the write-protection of the Movie VP. Had to download and to add it in the Knossos folder manually.

Actually, i never heard from this Demo before and so played through it.

The movies were very irritating, because sometime both choices are played which make them hard to follow. Actually i only know what happen here, because i watched the original movie a few years back (because of its lazy mission design and op player ship at the later part of the game WCIV never qualifies as a real game IMO).

Because you play the same missions, it was a not very good campaign in mission design  .

But it was interesting nevertheless. The nebula missions were fun finally thanks to the FS2 Engine. Also i liked the detail, that you are finally able to win the game if you stick yourself to the confederation.

Except from all the things that were carried over. I think the ship computer voice files should be normalized to be much louder. Actually i can only barely hear it...

[Admiral Nelson]

I was unable to download the Movie Files on Knossos. Maybe this is caused by the write-protection of the Movie VP. Had to download and to add it in the Knossos folder manually.

That's curious.  I've asked on discord if anyone can reproduce.

Actually, i never heard from this Demo before and so played through it.

The movies were very irritating, because sometime both choices are played which make them hard to follow. Actually i only know what happen here, because i watched the original movie a few years back (because of its lazy mission design and op player ship at the later part of the game WCIV never qualifies as a real game IMO).

Because you play the same missions, it was a not very good campaign in mission design  .

I suppose WCIV is pretty old -- a year older than FS1.  I never played either WCIII or WCIV back in the day as I thought them just interactive movies -- looks as if I was right!

Even Saga suffered from the OP fighter at the end; it seems to be a characteristic of WC games.

But it was interesting nevertheless. The nebula missions were fun finally thanks to the FS2 Engine. Also i liked the detail, that you are finally able to win the game if you stick yourself to the confederation.

Yes I thought this a nice touch as well.

Except from all the things that were carried over. I think the ship computer voice files should be normalized to be much louder. Actually i can only barely hear it...

I'll have a look....

[FekLeyrTarg]

Actually, i never heard from this Demo before and so played through it.

The demo was made for the WCSaga prologue demo release from 2008.

[Deathsnake]

Wing Commander 4 was released 9.Feb. 1996. More then 2 years before Freespace 1

[johnney351]

Thank for this !

Just played and finished the Demo, good memories of one of my favorite games, remember when I got the CD version in 1996, think it was 6 cd's back then and later on a DVD version was released.

really cool, looks fantastic with the in game speech, all perfect !

[Admiral Nelson]

I'm glad that you enjoyed it.