back at it again with a title

Well, people are probably wondering what I mean with the title to this forum post, and that's what I' here to explain after a lengthy into!

Just about everyone here knows of Simplelandia Roleplay, and how long its been going on for a while.
Some really don't like the RP going on, which is understandable to say the least, but I' here to show one positive with some pretty decent evidence;
Things like SLRP, or any major RP going on in the SP site encourages improvement for most the users involved.
The reason is it encourages people to step outta their comfort zone and try something to fill gaps in their imaginary military, such as build a new type of MBT or developed a new method of delivering some overpowered free fall bomb, it encourages people to expand their skills by trying something new that normally they wouldn't of considered.

Lets take me as that one bit of evidence;
I had no experience whatsoever in making any realistic tanks, tank turrets, or similar armorments that would go into an MBT.
A fine example would be my Tiger III and Vk 45.02, both of which were the last full on tanks I've built. Now, admittedly, I made them like 2 years ago, but the only thing between now and then that I would consider a tank is my Pz-ST, and that sucker has legs.

But you take a look at my first actual MBT, which really is just an APC/IFV with a 128mm smoothbore, and you can see how things have become.
But theres obviously a lot that came between the Tiger III and my MBT, so I'll show some screenshots of saved vehicles of mine with some god awful turrets that I began working on a few days before joining SLRP!

Now, lets start off with the P.001-128m

First ever turret made with panelling, and geez its as tall as a Maus, no joke.
Turret is bad, the APC hull I put it on is ridiculously large (like 32ft long), and while the gun is stabilized, theres a lotta gaps everywhere.

So, I stepped up my game come P.002. Okay, not really...

The P.002-128 was meant to be a para tank mounting the newly built Rh-128A1 (that I built as a sorta collab between me and Marcox43), it didn't even have a full turret, being completely exposed.
Well, come the next tank, I improved, right?

Ehhheheh, yeah no...

The P.006a-30m, its turret was literally the last thing added, and isn't even 10 parts.
Wasn't I supposed to be showing how I improved thanks to SLRP...?

P.007a-50m

Oh! That's looking significantly better, but I guess thats like comparing a moldy apple to a mushy apple.
While the turret looks good at a glance, and I did use paneling, it does have a few gaps here and there, and probably doesn't provide too much protection from incoming shells.

Luckily this was marginally improved with the (Urban) mod;

A lot of addon armor was welded and bolted on, which does distract from the glaring issues the turret has, but it's like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound; makes you feel better, but ouch thats a bullet wound.

Now lets move onto the first dedicated turret I've built as a seperate creation! This is where actual improvement is made!

jeez, why am I so optimistic in showing off the ugly ducklings?
The P.009a-128m, being the first actual attempt at building a turret as its own creation, I say its a half decent first attempt. Obviously, the turret has a crapload of issue, but I thought it looked nice then.

Rh-128b Turret

Wha... how the hell did you go from AA-looking cardboard box turret to basically a baby Leopard 2A1 turret?!
Honestly, thank Marcox42 for that, cause at the same time I was beginning to build it, he was sharing me screenshots of his like 400 part turret on Discord, step-by-step basically.
apparently I'm really good at learning how to do things in SP at a glance, judging by this turret and all the cockpits I have on my new planes
Regardless, I'm really proud of this turret, and rightfully so, it looks effin amazing.

Well, after a while from building that turret, and failing to make dedicated hulls for the turret, I decided to look back at the P.007a-50m and its bad turret.

I made a whole forum post about this one, so I'll be brief here, but the creation of this turret really cemented my ability with making something look really good, in terms of turrets.

And now onto the prototypes!

This was a turret as request from someone on the SLRP Discord server. Admittedly, this turret is a bit rougher than I really wanted, but in the end the guy really liked it.
Unlike the other turrets, this one was the start of adding actual spaced armor in my turret, as before it was just a single fuselage piece that made the shape with like 1000hp, but now the turrets have actual spaced armor with 1000hp.

The tall turret.

This turret was more as practice on making the shape of the Leopard 2A1's turret, and it did well in what I wanted.
Just... it's really too tall for it's own good. I had 3 people from the SLRP Discord try the turret on existing chassis, and all of them said it was waaaaay too tall (one guy showed me via screenshots the turret being taller than his chassis...).
So, with that feedback gained, I set out for my magnum opus...!
but first, a screenshot of the sheer spaced armor the tall turret has!

Yeah, tall turret has waaay too much armor. I didn't worry too much on realism for this one though, as it was more of what artists would call a "study", or practice, or whatever.
Anyways, onto the newest turret.

I'm not sure if it's the narcissism talking or what, but I just adore how well this turret cane out.
It's got amazing frontal protection in the form of 11 spaced armor panels in the front, double thick side armor between the turret cheeks and the ammo stowage (which honestly is just a giant block of ERA if you got the right blowout panels), and has all the hatches for the crew.

And just look at the armor of this thing, scales from 200hp in the first 4 or 5 panels, then jumps to 1000hp in the last 2 I believe.

I just love it, and while I don't exactly have anything wide enough to fit the turret, I wanna use it so badly...

So, I think this collage of pictures with descriptions shows well how someone can improve being involved in such an RP, considering before joining I thought I'd have nothing to do with modern and Cold War equipment, but there I am builing HEATFS-resistant turrets with stabilized guns!

And while I' not trying to show off any more than I have already, I hope this can show the value that these kinda roleplay games can have on the skill level of users that come outta them when they finally end, having significantly improved in areas they never thought of getting involved in.