RE: [HOE] Another Junker question.

["Jeffery Yates" <jyates@qlinktech.com>]

I agree with most of your reply, but I'd like to comment on the last bit.  I
won't make a blanket statement, but specifically regarding swords:  If you
start with a perfectly good sword, in has enough material to make it strong
and durable.  If you add stuff to the weapon (batteries, circuits,
switches...) you make it heavier.  You could try taking parts of the
original sword away, but then it gets much weaker.  The batteries, circuits
and switches all have to go somewhere, which will throw off the balance of
the weapon.  If you put the extra parts into the hilt, the hilt gets thicker
and harder to hold.  If you add the parts to the pommel, the center of
gravity for the sword shifts toward that end.  On the whole, heavier and
more unwieldy.

Now, a clever junker could put the electronics into the pommel, in a
screw-on module.  If the batteries are dead, or just unneeded right now,
then the electronics could be unscrewed, and a normal size/weight pommel
attached allowing for the sword to be a nice, normal sword.

Just my 2 .22cal rounds (seein' as how nobody uses pennies in HOE)

Jeff Y.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hoe@gamerz.net [mailto:owner-hoe@gamerz.net]On Behalf Of
> Robert Holland

<SNIPPAGE>

> The former is probably official. I happen to think that weapon
> speed penalties
> are an abysmally stupid side effect (why the hell should
> electrifying a sword
> make it heavier and more unwieldy?) so I'd got with the latter myself.
>
> --Robert Holland