... would it be to let advantages have more than an aesthetic effect when crafting lightsabers.

I'm not thinking going full-blown armour crafting. That is, I was just wondering if letting say 3 advantages on a hilt creation check could let you use your lightsaber pike as a melee weapon weapon when it's off (using the Melee skill perhaps.) Let temple guard lightsaber pike and the normal lightsaber pikes count as truncheons (perhaps with reduced Disorient?), whereas shotos and basic hilt get dmg+1, crit 4, Disorient 1 (or perhaps no Disorient)...

I guess you could just handwavium it and say lightsabers can be used that way by default... but I like to see this as a perk, using the improvised weapon rules for normal hilts ... anyway

You could allow advantage to improve the Lightsabers concealment within something else, a Shoto Hydro Spanner, a Pike in a Truncheon, a Saber in a drink bottle? Let the item give a setback or 2 on checks to identify it as a Lightsaber, and Iv can be used as the item its concealed within.

Sounds like a fun idea, you could play with it as GM too. NPC's that have no idea what the item actually is are always asking to borrow it, "Quick, chuck me your hydro spanner, I've got to get this speeder up and running" or "I'm parched, can I have a drink?" Or "I've got a rodent problem, can I borrow your beat stick for a couple of hours"

Then the look on an NPC's face when either their request is refused, or the best is when they accidentally activate it!

Not outrageous in the least. If a player came to me with this idea, I'd totally allow it.

I doubt the designers didn't consider other uses for Advantages and chose to limit them to non-mechanical benefits for a reason. I'm guessing they felt it was a bit too much.

My advice would be to keep in in the realm of your suggestions but without any mechanical benefit, something neat that could be useful but only rarely.

If I had to guess as to developer intent, I would say that rules to this effect would either take up WAY too much space, or else would be so minimal and vague as to be next to useless (not to mention too easy to abuse).

This is all conjecture, of course.

I like that this game generally encourages GMs and players to not feel constrained by "what the RAW uses for Advantage and Threat are." I mean, definitely err on the side of caution; but what you've got here in the OP is plenty cautious

I don't believe the developers want you to stick to what's in the book as read. The entire game mechanics rely on imagination and "out of the box" thinking. I'm sure the developers would feel greatly rewarded in their efforts when players and gms come up with an idea or scenario that allows the game experience to become more than the sum of it's parts. Good ideas and innovation should always be rewarded.

Corran Horn used a swoop bike handle...

Well, I''m not sure I think it's too over-powered or against the spirit of the system to allow a lightsaber handle be used as a melee weapon. It' requires the use of a different skill.

Sure, there's a mechanical benefit in that the handle does not count as an improvised weapon, but the benefits are not so much mechanical as flavour. A basic or double-bladed lightsaber becomes more like a baton, the pike variants slightly bigger batons. It allows the use of the hilt as a weapon in itself sure, but it's more about not giving away that it's a lightsaber before necessary - arguably more of a flavour and story than a mehcanical (combat) benefit in my opinion.

One could explicitly state a limitation that it can't be used as a melee weapon if the blade is activated.

I'd allow it, but within reason and with caution.

Personally, I'd just go with the general guidelines provided for improvised weapons to determine the damage stats when not used as a lightsaber, but without any of the drawbacks of using an improvised weapon.

Absolutely. I'm thinking mainly as a perk for those that choose to make a Lightsaber Pike, as it's the largest one... and let it also count as a normal truncheon when the blade is deactivated.

I have been toying with an attachment version too, that would allow some upgrades to it: like through modding adding the Knockdown quality... but then... why have a lightsaber... and perhaps Cortosis (unless you carry over the lightsaber sunder-proofness to this part of it too of course, which makes the most sense I guess).

I'd like to see an "Add a Boost Die" or "Add a Setback die" to Advantages/Threats produced. Could be representative of a well balanced hilt or some awkward ornamentation that can be nagging. But that should be capped at 1 or 2 die added. I was toying with ideas of allowing certain Weapon Qualities, but that is a hassle I don't want to get into. (and steps on mods).

So this isn't a thread about Jem and the Holograms then?

I'd like to see an "Add a Boost Die" or "Add a Setback die" to Advantages/Threats produced. Could be representative of a well balanced hilt or some awkward ornamentation that can be nagging. But that should be capped at 1 or 2 die added. I was toying with ideas of allowing certain Weapon Qualities, but that is a hassle I don't want to get into. (and steps on mods).

The Superior Hilt Customization attachment already covers things like the hilt being exceptionally well-balanced or other effects that would ultimately result in the wielder gaining some kind of bonus with their Lightsaber combat checks.

Like you said, once you start allowing for weapon qualities to be added simply because the PC rolled a certain number of advantage, you start stepping very heavily upon the attachment/modification system, which is generally balanced by the fact that most lightsabers only have so much room for extra widgets, with the basic lightsaber having the most hard points simply because it's the most vanilla of the various 'saber hilts.

So I've been rolling a thought around in my head, where a character can "modify" an item directly. This is a check that can be performed as often as the GM will allow, I'm still pushing some thoughts around on frequency. But the gist of the check is that the character makes a mechanics check, and can add or improve certain aspects of the weapon, with the limitation that each time this is done, you hit reset, and try again. So, non-cumulative bonuses. If you roll up -1 encumbrance and +1 pierce, great. The next time if you use all your results on +1 HP, you don't have the previous bonuses anymore. This would of course come with a chart similar to the armor crafting in KtP. I haven't pushed it to the top of my priority list simply because the Technician book seems like it's going to do something like this already.

On this train of thought, another way to handle this is for the players and GM to get together and create some custom attachments to best fit the player's desires, which the book does recommend, at least in the starship attachments section.

Why not allow a particularly Advantageous/Triumphant check to allow grant a free mod to a lightsaber attachment? Basically instead of rolling the Mechanics check and paying the 100 credits, you just get the mod for your Triumph or several Advantage. You'd have to pay for the attachment, of course, but maybe that could be an option?

I've done that for repair checks and mod checks. The idea that I was messing around with was a way to do more, without doing too much.

I'd like to see an "Add a Boost Die" or "Add a Setback die" to Advantages/Threats produced. Could be representative of a well balanced hilt or some awkward ornamentation that can be nagging. But that should be capped at 1 or 2 die added. I was toying with ideas of allowing certain Weapon Qualities, but that is a hassle I don't want to get into. (and steps on mods).

The Superior Hilt Customization attachment already covers things like the hilt being exceptionally well-balanced or other effects that would ultimately result in the wielder gaining some kind of bonus with their Lightsaber combat checks.

Like you said, once you start allowing for weapon qualities to be added simply because the PC rolled a certain number of advantage, you start stepping very heavily upon the attachment/modification system, which is generally balanced by the fact that most lightsabers only have so much room for extra widgets, with the basic lightsaber having the most hard points simply because it's the most vanilla of the various 'saber hilts.

i just feel that the Advantages/Threats seems to be a little wasted when it comes to the Lightsaber Construction Rules. Seeing as they were the first Construction Rules for anything in the system, they are nice to have. With Keeping the Peace giving us a similar, but different approach for making Armors, it does make the Lightsaber Construction Rules seem a little lacking. I can't wait for Special Modifications to see what goes down for Weapon Constructions. If that system feels right, or provides something a little more that can port over to Lightsabers nicely, I'll be doing so. In fact, the Lightsaber is a weapon, and therefore could be made using those rules, unless they put in wording to negate that. The only special items beholden to the Lightsaber are Force User Mechanics/Lore rolls and the First Attachment gets a Free Mod rules. Might be easier to port those two items into Special Modifications Weapon Construction rules. (Basing those rules on being similar enough to allow it.)