Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi

Wing Commander
Wing Commander	1990
Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi	1991
Wing Commander: Academy	1993
Wing Commander: Privateer	1993
Super Wing Commander	1994
Wing Commander: Armada	1994
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger	1994
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom	1996
Privateer 2: The Darkening	1996
Wing Commander: Prophecy	1997
Wing Commander: Secret Ops	1998

Key points

Characters can be imported from Wing Commander (see Import characters).

General information

Wing Commander Wiki

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Availability[edit]

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Use DOSBox.
GOG.com		Includes both expansions and Wing Commander. Pre-packaged with DOSBox.^[2]
Origin		Included with Origin Access Basic. Pre-packaged with DOSBox.

Version differences[edit]

The game was ported to Windows as part of Wing Commander: The Kilrathi Saga.

Downloadable content (DLC) and expansions

Name	Notes
Speech Accessory Pack	Adds digital voices to wingmen during firefights.
Special Operations 1
Special Operations 2

Essential improvements[edit]

Import characters[edit]

Copy SAVEGAME.WLD^{[citation needed]}

Go to GAMEDAT in the Wing Commander installation folder.
Copy SAVEGAME.WLD.
Go to GAMEDAT in the Wing Commander II installation folder and paste SAVEGAME.WLD.
Launch the game and choose the campaign to transfer data from.
Enter the path relative to DOSBox's mounted folder; for the GOG.com version this is C:\GAMEDAT
Choose the character you want and enter a first name; last name, callsign, total sorties and kills are imported.

Patches[edit]

The Wing Commander II Patch updates the original DOS version. The GOG.com version is already patched.
The Special Operations 1 Patch updates the original DOS version. The GOG.com version is already patched.
Reduced Asteroid Damage Patch (DOS, unofficial)
Crosshair Patch
DirectDraw Hack (Windows, unofficial)

Special Operations 1 and 2 (The Kilrathi Saga)[edit]

Special Operations 1 and 2 adds the missions from the original expansions. Extract somewhere convenient and run SO12Inst.exe.

The Kilrathi Saga version of Wing Commander II must be installed (the DOS version will not work). If the installer doesn't see the installation, see Special Operations won't install.

Game data[edit]

Save game data location[edit]

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\GAMEDAT\SAVEGAME.WC2
Windows	<path-to-game>\GAMEDAT\SAVEGAME.WC2^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)	<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing[edit]

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin

Video settings[edit]

GOG.com Graphic Mode Setup.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		320x200 only.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		Toggle with `Alt`+`↵ Enter` (when using DOSBox).
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS
120+ FPS

Input settings[edit]

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping		For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio settings[edit]

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles		All speech is text-based.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Other information[edit]

API[edit]

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DOS video modes
64-bit executable

Issues fixed[edit]

EXE has stopped working (The Kilrathi Saga)[edit]

Set Windows 95 compatibility mode^{[citation needed]}

Go to the properties of the named EXE.
Enable Windows 95 or Windows 98 / Windows ME compatibility mode.
Click OK.

Special Operations won't install[edit]

Install Special Operations manually^{[citation needed]}

Extract Special Operations 1 and 2 somewhere temporarily.
Move the four EXE files to the main wc2 folder, replacing all existing files.
Move all other files to wc2\gamedat replacing all existing files.
Go to the properties of SO1.EXE and SO2.EXE and set both to run in Windows 95 or Windows 98 / Windows ME compatibility mode.

System requirements[edit]

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP, Vista
Processor (CPU)	1.8 GHz
System memory (RAM)	512 MB	1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	DirectX 7.0 compatible	DirectX 9.0c compatible

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.6.8
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core Duo 2 GHz+
System memory (RAM)	1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	64 MB of VRAM

Notes

↑ When running this game without Administrator elevation, activity in %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%, and %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\ (more details).
↑ File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS and/or PC booter game data. For the GOG.com release, file changes in DOSBox are redirected to <path-to-game>/cloud_saves/ even if GOG Galaxy is not used (this folder contains all redirected files, so some files in the cloud_saves folder might be temporary files or other files that do not contain saves or settings).

References

[gamedir-3] When running this game without Administrator elevation, activity in %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%, and %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\ (more details).

[DOSBox_mounted-4] File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS and/or PC booter game data. For the GOG.com release, file changes in DOSBox are redirected to <path-to-game>/cloud_saves/ even if GOG Galaxy is not used (this folder contains all redirected files, so some files in the cloud_saves folder might be temporary files or other files that do not contain saves or settings).

[1] GOG.com goes Mac ● GOG.com

[2] List of GOG games using DOSBox, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com

[1]

[2]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

Developers

	Origin Systems
Release dates
DOS	1991
Windows	October 15, 1996
Windows (DOSBox)	August 25, 2011
macOS (OS X) (DOSBox)	October 18, 2012^[1]