NXT jousting: Early rider concepts
My thoughts on the rider are that we need to minimize pieces - mainly to have a larger selection of pieces for the mount. Some might argue for leaving the design of the rider open, but I think we should "lock in" some variables to make the game fair. I think the mount is where we should allow for creativity. Just my opinion.
In the first rider I'm including here, I've just put together some quick concepts of what a rider might look like. The claws I rarely have a use for, so I thought using them for legs might save some other beams for the mount. I used the main body (with head/eyes) for the 2nd rider... (I'm also including a photo of the exploded 2nd rider for view of all the required pieces).
The 2nd rider design uses more of the dark gray pieces, but it's still fairly light weight and does resemble a rider (maybe not...).
These are just ideas... not final designs. I'll be curious to see what Brian and/or Matthias come up with...
In the first rider I'm including here, I've just put together some quick concepts of what a rider might look like. The claws I rarely have a use for, so I thought using them for legs might save some other beams for the mount. I used the main body (with head/eyes) for the 2nd rider... (I'm also including a photo of the exploded 2nd rider for view of all the required pieces).The 2nd rider design uses more of the dark gray pieces, but it's still fairly light weight and does resemble a rider (maybe not...).These are just ideas... not final designs. I'll be curious to see what Brian and/or Matthias come up with...
Comments
It is funny how different people can see in their mind's eye vastly different things using the same words.
Jousting does not always involve knocking the opposing rider off their mount. Usually there were other competitions as well. These were often precision contests and if you find difficulty with the full on NXT vs NXT competition may provide some inspiration.
You may find some inspiration from this page. Or from that page's referencing page.
Keep this going, this is fun to watch!
thanks for the links that complement the ones I've posted in some recent comment.
Primarily, I too envisioned the rider holding the lance (which is the "natural" way) - yet, when having thought the challenge over, I'm considering it pretty difficult to do the splits between having the rider loosely coupled to the mount (hence being able to getting knocked off) on one side and him holding the lance and providing a firm stroke with the lance without being knocked off by this stroke by himself on the other.
So I suppose separating the rider and the fix point of the lance is a good (yet simplifying and somewhat inaccurate) concept for the beginning.
/Matthias
But in reality, I had never considered connecting the lance to the rider... 2 reasons:
1. The lance, if even slightly bumped, would knock the lightweight rider off.
2. the lance, connected to the mount, might make for more interesting collisions should the lance hit part of the other mount instead of its rider.
I envision large blocking/deflection devices on the front of the mounts now to prevent having your NXT skewered by the opposition.
Part of the challenge (again, in my mind) was going to be making a rider capable of staying on the mount and holding the lance (not pinned in, but more 'balanced' by the riding unit) without getting knocked off by the opposition. It would mean figuring out how to increase the friction between mount and rider to be higher than the opposition -- or to figure out how to make the lance gain more leverage.
As said early on, it's a sticky problem, so as you develop the rules, it'll be interesting to see where you go.
Back to the peanut gallery!