Updated 577.dat and Lightsabre shortcut discussion.

[Greg Teft]

I recently updated 577.dat to correct a handful of issues with it.
To support the length and hole depth corrections, the shortcuts used by the minifig generator were also updated.
There is some discussion at 577c01.dat & 577c02.dat regarding these.

I don't think a 10-year old part should be made obsolete, especially in this case.

I expect the users of the shortcuts are accustomed to having the light.dat in them, and that positioning them to get the desired effect would be difficult if they weren't there.

I do think that the new c03/c04 descriptions are better to suit the chrome hilt, but possibly adding 'Lit' to these should suffice rather than making them obsolete, grandfathering the use of light.dat here.

Please weigh in if you care if the current shortcuts should be made Obsolete or not.

[Tim Gould]

I don't think they belong. Lighting is up to the user.

Tim

[Chris Dee]

Marking them as "obsolete" does not remove them from the library, nor prevent anyone from continuing to use them. That would break backward compatibility which we do our very best to avoid. It just makes them harder for new users to find by prepending the description with "~" to keep them out of the primary parts list.

[Greg Teft]

ok :'( I love those lit light sabres

[Owen Burgoyne]

If there are plans to look at the way this part is set up in LDraw, would it perhaps also make sense to make the name of the part more accurate?

"Lightsaber" is the official spelling, and it is technically considered a weapon, and not so much a tool.

As some other official LDraw parts do not necessarily prefix the term "Tool" or "Weapon" to their names (for example, it is not "Minifig Weapon Cannon") then perhaps the following naming convention would be more suitable:

Minifig Lightsaber Chrome Silver with 1 Blade
Minifig Lightsaber Chrome Silver with 2 Blades

This would also free up the amount of characters to be both more descriptive and include the current colour usage that Lego use for all new sets that contain lightsabers for minifigs with a new Metallic Silver shortcut:

Minifig Lightsaber Metallic Silver with 1 Blade
Minifig Lightsaber Metallic Silver with 2 Blades

and maybe even:

Minifig Lightsaber Bent Chrome Silver with 1 Blade

[Greg Teft]

good comments owen - I can update 577.

When I thought about it and looked at the earlier chrome elements, the little indented ring between the pommel details is either filled by the chrome material, or was not there, any opinions on loosing the ring for 577, and adding 64567 with the ring detail.

I also just looked at x156, and realized it may have some of the same issues with the hole depths.
I think we have a set with Dooku that I can find the accessories for to compare.

61199 doesn't seem to exist yet