The Villain EX is a great boat, and I recommend it for beginners, modders, or anyone else.
Most people think of one thing when they buy an RC machine: How fast will this go [before the reactors go critical, or maybe just a little critical]? I know I do.
Out of the box, the EX is fast, but not as fast as some of its competitors. This is where the 'max speed' thing comes into play. This boat is not designed for rocketing down a lake and then coming back (although, modded, it will do that and run circles around the competition). Think control: this boat has more control than a rudder-controlled boat. How much control, and what good is control if it isn't as fast as it could be... let me explain:
Let's say you have two boats in a river with a current of 10 mph, one is the Villain EX, the other is a Rudder-equipped boat. Using the low-end power, you run each boat to fight the current at a speed of 10 mph to equal the current, but 0 knots (knots are how fast you are moving in relation to land-based reference objects.) This is where positive control comes into play.
Moving the rudder of the rudder boat will cause it to either move latterally (parallel to shore) with a slight turn in that direction.
Moving the out-drives of an out-driven boat, like the EX, will bring that boat into a 360 degree turn. More power will give a sharper turn in this case. Once you understand the dynamics of what is going on with an out-drive and a rudder, you can see the potential for both.
Instead of re-inventing the wheel and explaining how a rudder works in detail, I am just going to ignore them for the rest of this post henceforth, because the point is made above.
Now it's time to have fun with an out-drive. What kind of fun? Well, one favorite of modded (and unmodded) EX owners is wave-jumping. Now, I live in NE Ohio, 5 miles from Lake Erie. This is not your typical lake, being the 3rd largest in the world after Superior and Michigan, so I can understand if you dont see the potential for getting much air off of your sheet of glass in Arizona.
However, if you live near a lake with choppy water, strong currents, and especially other 'Real' boats running and creating large wake waves, you will want a boat that can cut through them and steer in currents. This is where the out-drive excels. But wait... what about that wave jumping I mentioned? What's up with that?
Lake Erie is no Ocean, but it gets its waves up there with the best of them. They can top 15 feet at shore in extreme weather [and anyone who lives in NE ohio knows that when I say "Extreme", I mean apocalyptic, end of the world, wrath of god type weather. We have some of the most extreme weather in the continental US, right here
] On average, the waves topple in at 2-5 feet, and the Rip-Currents are very strong due to the Break-Walls built along the shore.
So what good is a 3 foot wave that would certainly capsize your boat, and how is that more fun than rocketing a boat down a sheet-of-glass style pond? Let's just say, with an out-drive, you can surf a wave, out-run it, come back, and grab 6-10 feet of air, and stick the landing [with practice, grasshopper, and be ready to swim during said practice.] I know every boat manual says dont swim after a sinking boat. Well, I say, to hell with that. My mother put me through 12 years of arduous swimming lessons, and eventually I got into scuba diving as well, so I am like a shark in the water. If you can't swim, don't try to get the boat back, use a fishing pole. If you can swim, go get it before your investment becomes property of the Catfish Union.
In closing, yes, my Villain EX is heavily modded. 10 Feet of air out of the box is impossible. 'Sticking' the landing without adjusted trim tabs is more like a backwards missle headed for the bottom of the lake.
Bottom Line:
[Rudders/ Direct Drive] :: If your lake/pond resembles a precision-CNC milled piece of marble, a direct-drive/rudder boat will give you what you need (speed, of course), but I think of that as being nore more exciting than running an RC car in a parking lot (which is fun), but with far less control... boats can do a lot more if you add in a few bumps (waves).
[Outdrives/Dynamic Drive] :: You'll get, like, [dy/dx]f(x)= csc^2[C*LN(AO/AL^2)]*[V^2*F] of air! (with waves).
** C= Coefficient of Drag [LN(current*hull / VF^2)]
** AO= Derivative Arc Angle
** AL= Arc Length
** V= Velocity
** F= Force
Videos and pictures coming soon. Filming today!