On November 12, exactly 6 years ago, I bought Simpleplanes.

Just like last year, I'm making a little recap of the things that happened to me in SP this year. Let's get into it! Enjoy! The post itself is a bit belated, I couldn't post on the actual anniversary because I was busy with irl stuff.

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My second challenge

A few years ago I made the Custom Tiger Tank challenge which had moderate success with about 7 entries.
This year, I decided to host another challenge, the Dreadnought Challenge where participants were asked to build some of history's mightiest dreadnought battleships or come up with their own.
The challenge proved to be quite successful with 15 awesome entries. Thanks again to those who participated and stay tuned for my next challenge!

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Virtual learning

Later in the year, MisterT published his FPS Walking camera which opened a ton of possibilities in the game.
I started to think what ways this could be used for and then it struck me: instead of making walking a side feature of an otherwise complete build, why not make walking the main feature and design the whole build around it.
And that's when I came up with the idea to build Virtual Titanic Museum, a nice virtual experience, where you can walk around in a small museum, check out replicas of real life Titanic artifacts as well as recreations of other things and learn a lot about them.

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A new dreadnought takes the sea

While the dreadnought challenge was still going, I got inspired by all the awesome entries and started building a dreadnought on my own. This became the SENS Sorseth, my first attempt at building a warship with a camo pattern.
The ship is currently on hold but Intend to finish it sometime in the future.
I tried to pack it with as many features as it is possible, it already features the usable main and secondary battery, a walker camera on the bridge (the bridge itself will be fully detailed as well), a launch-able biplane on a roll off platform on one of the turrets, deploy-able canvases to protect the crew when in port and so on.

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The Tsar's cannons

A little over 2 years ago, a request came in to my Requests page, to build the Imperial Russian pre-dreadnought Borodino. It seemed like an interesting project so I quickly put it on my list but didn't give much attention then.
Then, sometime later, EternalDarkness suggested the same ship on Port SP so now that two people requested it, I figured I should take a look at it. Well, it turned out to be much more difficult than I expected: This ship has a very complex tumblehome hull and just figuring out how it bends and where already made me lose some of my hair.
About a year ago I decided to finally get this project over with and start seriously working on it. The hull had to be restarted from scratch around 3 or 4 times but I finally managed to get it right, the rest of the superstructure was pretty easy for me.
I did try to add things that I haven't done before, such as building the crest on the bow or adding a functional HUD for targeting which also includes disabling the weaponry when they are not usable, making this ship even more unique by my standards.
After many months of work, in October this year, the Borodino was finally crossed from my backlog and set sail on SP's flat seas.

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Another project from the backlog

After the Borodino was released, I didn't hesitate and immediately jumped into my next project which was once again selected from the backlog as I have now set a goal to try to clear it out in the next few years.
The chosen ship was one that has been sitting on the list for a long time now, probably longer than Borodino, the French torpilleur L'Adroit (1927), obscure little interwar destroyer who met her end during Operation Dynamo.
Well, as it turns out this project might end up being more difficult than Borodino was, due to the very low amount of information that can be gathered of her online (especially in English).
The project is still on-going but is progressing quite slowly due to the mentioned lack of sources. But I'm not giving up, she shall sail those flat seas soon as well

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Closing thoughts

Once again, this year was not too productive in terms of public posts, though I did build quite a lot of things, just haven't posted many of them. My Borodino build gave me a new momentum however and ever since I finished it, I've been busy working on other projects that are all made to be published, so I'm hopeful for the 7th year, maybe I can finally publish more builds this year.

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Closing Screenshots

Just like last year, I want to close this post with a few screenshots I made this year. Like last time, I will include a number of teasers of builds that are work-in-progress the at moment. Enjoy!

An old, pretty much abandoned project, a battleship with a recoverable seaplane

Speaking of seaplanes, as a fun relaxing project, I started building a simple flying boat this year. The current version features an unfinished interior. I might release it in the future if I deem it good enough. The background is another unreleased project, a newer iteration of a spawnable island (at this point I've built like 4 of them, but none of them was good enough to be posted yet)

Some more pictures of the mentioned island, this time sneaking below some anchored destroyers with a u-boot

As for u-boots, the one on the pictures above is quite old and outdated, so part of a currently running project, I decided to build a new one. Expect to see this one soon

And here is another project I did just for fun, the 7007-HL355 carrier capable strike aircraft, hehe

Two nicely dressed up warships sailing along (right ship by ShiroNeko)

My failed entry for EternalDarkness' airship challenge. It started out good but I lost motivation. Who knows, I might finish it in the future but I wont be able to make it till the challenge deadline

And finally, my WIP dreadnought in a nice peacetime camo

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Well this was my 6th year recap, I wonder what will my 7th year bring. Thanks for reading and I wish you, dear reader, a great time and as I always say under my posts: Have fun! :D