Thanks very much
. Honestly, the Rock Force is my first crawler, so I don't really have anything to judge by unfortunately. To me it feels like it does pretty well, but the steering link and the center get caught on quite a few things. It can also feel like it wants to tip over sometimes, mostly when I've got one tire up on something and the others trying to go up the same path. The servo saver isn't very good, either. Outside of that I think it's a pretty good truck. The Sidewinder in regular form would probably a bit too fast, yeah. I have it running at 50% power, which seems to help, and honestly I'm quite happy with it. After each time I've taken it out the only thing that wasn't basically room temperature was the battery, which was just very, very slightly warm.
I'm sorry to hear you had a bad time with the Crawler King. I've had a great time crawling. I've really only every had 'conventional' R/C's, ya know, for fast running on- or off-road. Not to say that they aren't fun, but it's definitely awesome running something off-road and over things that you really just can't or won't with other R/C's. The slow running and 'skill' you have to have makes it fun, as well.
I'd recommend a Rock Force, yeah. The thing appears to be built like a tank, as it mostly uses 1/8 and 1/5 scale parts (hub carriers are I think pulled off the 1/8 scale Infernos, huge links, etc), and feels like one too (especially with the weight!). Because of this the amout of spare parts you'd need to buy will likely be relatively few. The crawling ability is there - I read a lot about it before I got the truck, and there were a few that said it was the best out of the box crawler one could buy. I think the guy over at stampedeproject.com put this in his review? Can't remember, sorry. Here's the link, though:
http://www.stampedep...got-torque.htmlYou just have to know how to set it up, which I have to learn how to do. Outside of setup some modifications are required, like the steering link, but I can explain that later if needs be (it's a relatively simple mod). It's also good to get a Rock Force if you only have regular electronics lying around; it should do fine with just a 27T motor and regular ESC, as you don't need a drag brake or torquey motor due to the worm gears. Right now the main thing is that it's about $250, so I thought it was a pretty good deal. When it came out (years ago, granted), it was around $550. It's not a very popular platform, but after running it if I had the choice to exchange it I wouldn't.
Hope this helps.
