About 7 years ago, on the 12th of November, 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 third challenge

Interestingly, I started this year exactly like my 6th, by launching a new challenge. This time, my challenge went even further back in time, to the mighty pre-dreadnoughts. The challenge was pretty successful, getting 14 entries by the end, many of which were pretty high quality and very well built. Congratulations to the winners again and thanks again to everyone who participated!

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Scrapyard

Over the years I've been playing the game, I started many projects that ended up being not finished and forgotten, but every now and then, I come accross one of them in my save files and wonder if people would have enjoyed them if they were ever finished. So, this year I decided to create the Scrapyard, a page where I collect all of these unfinished builds as unlisted posts, so you guys can enjoy them even in their unfinished form, or even better, someone hopefully finishing them.

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Airships and Fire? A great combo!

Seems like this year was a year of challenges for me, as it was this year that I entered my second challenge (technically, I entered it last year but my entry was only published this year). This time, I participated in EternalDarkness' Airship Challenge, by building a Fire Nation Airship from Avatar: The Last Airbender and I managed to get to third place with it... just like I did on my first challenge where I also entered with an Avatar themed build and got third place... hmm I'm starting to see a pattern here.

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Floating Dutchman

I'm sad to admit it but in the recent years, I slowed down a lot when it comes to ship building. Gone are the days of finishing a ship in just a few weeks, let alone a few days like I did with my original USS Arizona. But, I try to make up for this by making the ships that I do release, as high quality and innovative as possible. So this year, I decided to finally cross out a project that has been on my planned list for quite some time, the Dutch vessel HNLMS Van Kinsbergen. And I packed some innovation into this beauty as well: first, a personal achievement in the form of the first ever auto-aimed gun AA gun on my ships and second by further refining the bridge walker from my Borodino with new features such as a locked area of walking (so he cant walk off the bridge like on the Borodino) and more importantly, by incorporating the aiming HUD into binoculars that he is holding in his hand, thus removing the need to switch cameras. I'm rather proud of how this vessel turned out and looking forward to building my next small ship (which is already in the works, see the Gallery section at the end for that).

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Roadtrip

After posting Van Kinsbergen, I decided not to jump into another ship right away and instead look for a quick, relaxing build. I was inpired by L1nus' amazing cars and figured why not try one as well, afterall, the last time I tried to build one was almost 6 years ago.
And so, I built my first street vehicle, a fictional 70s cop car, the Metropolitan. I really enjoyed this project as it was rather short (took me about a week or two to make) and I didn't feel any pressure to make it perfect on every milimeter like I do on my ships, also helped by the fact that I was building a fictional car, not a replica. It was a short experimentary build and I rather enjoyed it. So much so that immediately after posting it, I got to work on another one, this time something more close to home (literally). I decided to build another fictional car, now based on the old eastern bloc cars I saw so often growing up (and still do, albeit there are a lot fewer of them) and so the Minerva was born.
While the results are nowhere near as good as L1nus' beauties, I'm still pretty satisfied with how they turned out and I already put a few more car ideas on my list, which I'm looking forward to build.

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Back into the depths

Another project I revived this year is the wreck exploration project, something I havent posted in over 3 years even tho I still have about 9 of these on my list of plans. After the cars, I still havent felt like getting back to a proper ship project, but I wanted to make something ship related, so building another wreck exploration seemed like the perfect choice. This time, I decided to replicate the wreck of the Mighty Fitz, or the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore freighter that was tragically lost on Lake Superior in 1975. This wreck exploration is actually one of the highest quality wrecks I built so far, being on par with the detail of my Bismarck wreck.

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Closing thoughts

I definitely view this year as a success, even if my backlog only got longer again, because I was still able to publish far more builds than I did in the previous year. I'm looking forward to my projects next year but more importantly, I'm looking forward to what SP2 will bring as I can assure you all that I'll be getting it on day one.

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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!

My current work in progress build, L'Adroit

Another project I started this year, a ficitonal paddle steamer I named the Princess of Buda

An interior shot of the Princess of Buda, she will feature almost full interior (with the exception of the cabins)

A police blockade of two Metropolitans

L1nus' work-in-progress Dodge Coronet and my B.M.C Metropolitan parking outside the Jundroo City police station

My work-in-progress H-39 and LocalDealer's Bismarck side by side

Speaking of LocalDealer, here is a nice shot of his 45M Hunyadi tank, that he built on my request. I designed this tank back in high school when I was hooked on World of Tanks

Another shot of it, this time edited to look like an old photo

EternalDarkness' Karadjordje river monitor, engaging my SMS Leitha monitor

A cursed photo: I modified LocalDealer's Bismarck to have the layout of a Nelson-class battleship

A glimpse of my work-in-progress Convoy escort mini game

And another one

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Well this was my 7th year recap, I wonder what will my 8th year bring, it will surely be interesting with SP2 being on the horizon. Thanks for reading and I wish you, dear reader, a great time and as I always say under my posts: Have fun! :D