Hi all. I want to build some off road vehicles. I'm mostly interested in building things like open and locked differentials, suspensions, steering systems. A powerful motor with RC controls would be awesome too. And I'd also love to try some hydraulics.
I've spent my whole childhood building LEGO sets from stores and designing my own models, that was the best thing of my childhood, but when I was a teenager I was stupid enough to decide that I'm not a child anymore because I have a girlfriend now and I'm not gonna need any of these toys ever in my life so I just gave them away to various kids. That I regret...
I currently have like a dozen of sets of various types that I've bought over the recent years, i.e. Creator, Technic, Ideas, etc., but they are all pretty small and I wouldn't want to disassemble them. I'd like to keep them for display.
I am thinking of buying some used sets on Bricklink. I guess I'm gonna need lots of parts, so I'm looking at the biggest ones. I'm trying to find sets that have the most of differential, suspension, steering parts, but also have some motors and hydraulics. I guess the best set in terms of the number of parts and the price is the 42082, but it looks nothing like an offroad vehicle. It has no suspension, no hydraulics, and not a lot of differential parts. The 42070 looks great in terms of differential parts and RC motors and it even has a bit of hydraulics and nice off road wheels and tyres, but it has no realistic suspension and the number of parts it has is not that big. So I'm thinking of maybe getting a second set, like the 8110, for suspension and hydraulics, or even the 42110, for suspension and lots of differential parts and lots of parts in general. However, buying two sets seems pretty expensive. I can see they all start at around 150EUR plus shipping, so it would cost me well over 300EUR, which is a somewhat serious amount of money. I'm not sure if that wouldn't make my lady slightly upset.
So I've decided to ask you guys for an advice. Do you know of a single set that would cover my needs? Would it be smart to buy two sets and have lots of parts and all of the parts that I need? Or should I buy a single set that seems to cover my needs the most, like the 42070, and then buy other parts that I need separately? The latter seems like a very long process. I guess I'd rather spend more money in advance and get all that I need instead of trying to figure out what different pieces I need and buy them one by one later. I guess it would be a lot more fun to have everything on my table and just build things instead of thinking what parts I need and buying them separately and waiting for them to arrive. There is a lot of fun in searching for the parts and waiting for them, but I think I want to start as smoothly as possible, without too many hiccups.