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Here we go again, how many delays have we seen now? This time the Atari VCS team are saying that it's so popular they don't have enough components.

Reminder: the Atari VCS is a modern-retro hybrid console, that runs a Linux OS and it can have any other operating system of your choice boot up on it. Originally crowdfunded on IndieGoGo in 2018 with multiple millions, it's relying on some pretty heavy nostalgia.

In a fresh Medium blog post, the team mentioned that they're now looking at full retail production in January 2021. Instead of late October for the first lot of deliveries for backers, they've also now pushed that back further into mid-November. They said two issues have caused part of this which is a "critical" and "very scarce component" needed for the Classic Joystick along with "a specific part" needed for their AMD Ryzen CPU that they appear to be looking around to find more sources for. The January 2021 date still might not be hit, as they say they're "assuming" what they need arrives in time and in the full quantity they need.

On a separate IndieGoGo backer update, because they decided to split the info between two places because they're still terrible at communication, they gave this updated overall plan of what's going on:

  • All Atari VCS units and Modern Controllers earmarked to fill backer orders are either in the US warehouse or will be before the end of the month.
  • After being delayed due to a late-arriving part, all Classic Joysticks for backers are now scheduled to start departing the factory on 11/5/2020.
  • To mitigate this additional delay, Atari has now arranged to import the joysticks from China via air freight, rather than by traditional trans-ocean shipping. This will significantly reduce the travel time from the typical 6+ weeks, down to 10-14 days.
  • Based on this revised schedule, and barring any unusual customs delays (we’ve already experienced a couple), we expect to have all merchandise on hand in the US warehouse and ready to ship to backers starting as soon as the week of November 16th.
  • Orders will go out via standard shipping in roughly the order that they were made. Product serial numbers will not follow any specific order sequence. This includes both domestic and international orders. 
  • We do not yet know the pace or daily outbound capacity of the fulfilment center and will share any info we can when it becomes available.

One of the bigger problems is that they've still confirmed very little in the way of games. They're getting the Plex media player along with two other minor streaming services and they teamed up with Game Jolt. We also know they're going to put on the Atari Vault classic collection but they've not shared much else which is worrying. They're also going to be messing around with an Atari Token crypto currency too, as if things weren't weird enough.

You can see more on the Atari VCS site

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Purple Library Guy Nov 5, 2020
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: TheRiddickcybernetic implants are quite expensive for the functional ones. You can bootleg 3d print your own, but its far from amazing like in CP2077 where people are punching through walls.

I think I saw a girl get a arm implant from a company, it was $70k, and that is low tech stuff today.
Yeah, we're getting there for sure. My point was they aren't all over the place and still too expensive.

Granted depending on the cyberpunk stuff you're reading / playing, the cybernetics are either cheap and plentiful, or the reason people with them are poor. In my own campaign setting that I wrote up, most people have them due to war, and missing limbs needed to be replaced, and they're not handy for punching through walls. Physics wise it doesn't make sense. You could have a robot grasp on things and that part could be strong, but if you punched through a wall, wouldn't it mess up your shoulder?
Presumably a robot arm, to be effectively stronger, would have to include some shoulder, and reinforcement even further into the main body. I'm imagining strands of artificial sinew alongside the normal kind, anchoring onto your Shadowrun-style "bone lacing". And even there--a lot of the force of a powerful punch comes from your core anyway.
On the other hand, you'd gain some effective strength just from being able to punch rigid things as hard as you can without your hand breaking. But it's rather a drastic intervention just to get the effect of brass knuckles.
Yeah, you'd need to do a lot more work than just the arm, which is typically what is shown as having super strength. It seems that GURPS 4th edition fixed that, as a cybernetic arm by itself doesn't really give more than a +1 or 2 ST to lift, if I remember correctly. Where I believe in 3rd edition you could increase it up to 20.

One of my players wanted a full cyborg to start out with, but I told him the tech wasn't really quite there unless billions was spent on it. Then he got all excited when I shot one of his arms with a sniper rifle. It didn't quite destroy the arm, and he could have healed from it, but he jumped on the chance and had his arm replaced with a cybernetic one. Only to learn it didn't really give him a benefit, except that if he ever gets hit with an EMP, it'll be come ruined :P
Bwahahahaah!!! Cruel, but you did warn him. He's also going to have a hard time whenever he's going somewhere with security--any scan for weapons, metal detector or what will spot his arm and they'll probably think there's a weapon built into it.
Thinking of, I designed a GURPS cyberpunk character once with a laser rifle built into his leg, and serious karate skill. So he'd do a kick, and Zap! Plus he could have both hands showing on top of the table and still shoot them under it. I never got a chance to personally have fun with that one 'cause I wrote it for other people to play. But that's OK, because it was for a tournament at a con, and Steve Jackson ended up helping us run it and went for sushi with us afterwards.
slaapliedje Nov 5, 2020
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: TheRiddickcybernetic implants are quite expensive for the functional ones. You can bootleg 3d print your own, but its far from amazing like in CP2077 where people are punching through walls.

I think I saw a girl get a arm implant from a company, it was $70k, and that is low tech stuff today.
Yeah, we're getting there for sure. My point was they aren't all over the place and still too expensive.

Granted depending on the cyberpunk stuff you're reading / playing, the cybernetics are either cheap and plentiful, or the reason people with them are poor. In my own campaign setting that I wrote up, most people have them due to war, and missing limbs needed to be replaced, and they're not handy for punching through walls. Physics wise it doesn't make sense. You could have a robot grasp on things and that part could be strong, but if you punched through a wall, wouldn't it mess up your shoulder?
Presumably a robot arm, to be effectively stronger, would have to include some shoulder, and reinforcement even further into the main body. I'm imagining strands of artificial sinew alongside the normal kind, anchoring onto your Shadowrun-style "bone lacing". And even there--a lot of the force of a powerful punch comes from your core anyway.
On the other hand, you'd gain some effective strength just from being able to punch rigid things as hard as you can without your hand breaking. But it's rather a drastic intervention just to get the effect of brass knuckles.
Yeah, you'd need to do a lot more work than just the arm, which is typically what is shown as having super strength. It seems that GURPS 4th edition fixed that, as a cybernetic arm by itself doesn't really give more than a +1 or 2 ST to lift, if I remember correctly. Where I believe in 3rd edition you could increase it up to 20.

One of my players wanted a full cyborg to start out with, but I told him the tech wasn't really quite there unless billions was spent on it. Then he got all excited when I shot one of his arms with a sniper rifle. It didn't quite destroy the arm, and he could have healed from it, but he jumped on the chance and had his arm replaced with a cybernetic one. Only to learn it didn't really give him a benefit, except that if he ever gets hit with an EMP, it'll be come ruined :P
Bwahahahaah!!! Cruel, but you did warn him. He's also going to have a hard time whenever he's going somewhere with security--any scan for weapons, metal detector or what will spot his arm and they'll probably think there's a weapon built into it.
Thinking of, I designed a GURPS cyberpunk character once with a laser rifle built into his leg, and serious karate skill. So he'd do a kick, and Zap! Plus he could have both hands showing on top of the table and still shoot them under it. I never got a chance to personally have fun with that one 'cause I wrote it for other people to play. But that's OK, because it was for a tournament at a con, and Steve Jackson ended up helping us run it and went for sushi with us afterwards.
Ha ha, now that is awesome! I've designed tons of characters as well that I've never been able to play. One of my players were added after a session or two, and didn't have time to create a character. So I made him an ex-stuntman that was disgraced for the accidental death of a beloved celebrity, so he ended up becoming a porn star after changing his name, until someone happened to recognized him. Since I didn't have time to equip the character, I put into his background that he was homeless and dead broke when the other players found him. Gave him the porn name of Dirk Dagger, and we constantly make jokes about it. Fantastic character!
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