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2nd and 3rd Year of Simpleplanes

48.6k BMilan  3.4 years ago

Today (november 12) exactly 3 years ago, I bought Simpleplanes. Just like two years ago, I wanted to make a recap of my 2nd year in SimplePlanes. Unfortunately, due to all the stuff that was going on at the time (mostly University related) I forgot about it but now I'm gonna make one, bigger recap both about my second and third year together. Enjoy!


Attention: This is going to be a veeeeery long post.


2nd Year:


A great start!

My second year started very well. Not long after my first year recap, I uploaded my simple Willy's MB Jeep with actual interacting soldiers in it, which (to my absolute surprise) got featured. I was very very happy because this was my very first featured build. It was a great feeling to have my post being at the top of the main page. It was very surprising since the sole existence of this Jeep build was only so that I can build my LVT-4 Water Buffalo, but I'm glad it was this succesful

Even more good news

Soon after the Jeep, I reached 10k points on the site. Points doesn't mean too much to me because my reason for playing this game is not to get points but the fact that I love building and sharing my builds to others. But I saw many people doing these 10k and 25k etc. builds so I decided why not make one too:

An old dream.. coming true!

Ever since I realised tanks can be built in the game, I wanted to build my favourite tank of all time, the Pz.Kpfw. VI. 'Tiger'. I was waiting with it so that I can gain more experience and be skilled enough to build it as I want it. As I reached 10k points, I decided, maybe it's time to finally build it. And so I did.
But I didn't stop at the 10k Tiger. I decided to make more versions of it. The 10k Tiger was followed by the replica of the last running condition Tiger, the Bovington Tank Museum's Tiger 131, then Battlefield V was released, and while I didn't like the other war stories in the game's story mode, I loved the Last Tiger campaign and so I remade Tiger 237 'Stefan' from it.

Stefan was followed by a version that wasn't just a "retexture" but a whole rebuild of the tank: the Sturmtiger.
After all these versions I wanted to do something else as well with the Tiger:

The Challenge!

I enjoyed building the 'retextures' of the Tiger (131 and 237) and decided, let's see what other can bring out of it. So I made the custom Tiger Challenge. The challenge's goal was that people made their own interpretation of a Tiger. Some very great applies came and I was fascinated by how creative some people were. It was all awesome!
It was great and I'm planning to do more challenges in the future. :D

The Last Planebender

After making my own challenge, I also participated in someone else's challenge for the first time: The Water and Air Challenge by TheAtmoicFox. As the challenge's cover, he made the insignia of the water tribe from one of the greatest cartoons of all time: Avatar the last airbender (if you haven't seen it yet, you definietly should. Trust me, you won't regret it). So I got a creative idea which got me the 3rd place in the challenge. :D

Two more Tigers

After the challenge, I went on a bit of hiatus because my matura exams were coming and I had to concentrate on those. But after I finished I returned with great plans... too bad most of them are still just plans, but later about that.
I decided to make the last remaining version of the Tiger, I haven't made yet: the Bergetiger, which was possible due to the 1.8 update that brought winches and magnets into the game. I also made a Knocked-out Tiger that can be spawned as AI and then taken apart with the Bergetiger's crane.

Trying out a mod

After this, I found MOPCKOEDNISHE's tracks 2 mod and decided to give it a try. I'm usually against using mods on builds that I upload so that people doesn't have to download any additional stuff to try out my builds. But the results were so good with the Tracks2 mod that I decided to make an exception: I managed to recreate the Tiger's tracks almost perfectly on the Bergetiger and on Tiger 131. I uploaded the result and then something came...

The second hiatus. End of second year

What came is the new semester and with it, my University life started. I barely had any time to play Simpleplanes (or anything at all) so all my projects came to an unfortunate halt up until new year's eve.
It was during this hiatus that my profile became 2 years old but I totally forgot about it because of my studies, that's why there was no recap post last year.


3rd Year:


End of hiatus and another old idea coming true

In december, when I finially finished all my stuff for the semester, I wanted to make a comeback build to mark the end of my hiatus and why not incorporate some stuff I've been thinking on for quite a while:
There were 3 things on my 'To Do' list that I wanted to do/try out:
- Building a Bf-109
- Building a Hungarian plane
- Doing my first actual cockpit

So I decided to combine these 3 into one build but with a twist: the interacting soldiers on my Willy's Jeep were pretty successful so I wanted to do it again.
And thus, the Bf-109 G-6 RHAF was born, with an authentic Royal Hungarian Air Force camo, a cockpit and a pilot who actually moves his arms to control the plane. I uploaded the plane on New Year's Eve as a special build.

My Biggest build (...so far)

After the Bf-109, I was overwhelmed with studies again but in my small free time, I cooked up something "small": The 1:1 scale replica of the Citadel from Half-Life 2.
It was among my smallest builds in terms of part count and the time it took to build it... but in terms of size, with its 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) height, it stands as my biggest build... well, so far. :)

The First Video

For quite some time, the website had a feature to upload videos but I never had any idea to upload.. but then I saw Phillip Tarpley's video where he destroyed one of the Karkabloa bridges from Wright and I though, why not try that but bigger:
And so I uploaded my first video where I destroy the Yeager bridge from Maywar.

Another Tiger... probably not the last

After all the Tiger tank variants, I wanted to let go of the topic but it just keeps coming back: One day I was messing around with the Bergetiger and the AI Dummy Tiger and I thought, if I made the dummy Tiger to have partial interior, why not make a Tiger with full interior. And so I did. I tried to make my best Tiger so far and while it turned out to be really good, I might make a new one in the future.
One day I shall post the best Tiger tank replica on the website.

Back to ships!

The Interior Tiger was followed by possibly my longest project ever: The USS Texas. I started working on it back in summer, 2019 but due to all the other stuff that I was doing at the time, I forgot about this project, up until May, 2020 when I found it in my saves and started working on it again. This build also featured my first ever teaser video which at the same time, is the first ever teaser I posted.
The Texas turned to to be very good and it stands as my 3rd most successful build of all time as well as being my second featured build. This was also the first build where I decided to not to watch the part count and just make it as detailed as possible.

The USS Texas was followed by another American dreadnought, a rebuild of the USS Arizona, now with more than twice the part count than my original build and being much more accurate and detailed. Just like the Texas, this build also had a teaser video, as well as a teaser post which is another thing I did for the first time.
This is among the builds I'm the most proud of. It didn't get the most upvotes out of all my builds, but I think this is one of my best builds so far.

Reworked profile

Around the end of summer 2020, I decided to rework my profile with some new stuff.
I created 3 new forum posts:
Builds:
which is a post where one can find all my uploads with pictures of them without having to go through several pages of profile
Updates:
which is kind of log where I leave updates about events regarding my SP profile as well as a place where you can follow my current plans and the progress of those plans.
and Requests:
which is a post where people can request things from me to build.

I'm nowhere near as popular for such system to work as it should (it would more likely fit someone with a lot more followers) but I still think it's a cool idea to make a profile more follower friendly. :)


Final thoughts

As we arrive to today, I have to say that these last two years had good and bad equally. I did accomplish some great achievements I was hoping to do, but on the other hand, I wasn't as active as I hoped to be.
Many of my plans reamined just plans but I'm hoping I can create more of them in the next year.
Thanks for everyone who supported me in these recent years and I hope you'll stick around for many more :D
I'm full of ideas and while I may be less active, I'll try to upload as often as I can, because even after 3 years, I still really enjoy this game and want to share my creations with the community.

As I did at the first year, here are a few screenshots I made in the past two years:


Landing on the beach of Karkabloa with the LVT-4 Water Buffalo


An unreleased bomber, the 'Harper 2'


At some point I was so bored, I waited out to see where the USS Beast ends up. Turns out it hits an island not far from Karabloa


Dogfighting with a Spitfire, using my Bf-109 G-6 (repainted to Luftwaffe DAK colors)


Spitfire blown to smithereens


USS Texas (BB-35) sailing along with an AI USN dreadnought I built (yet unreleased)


My A6M Zero flying over my (yet unreleased) Pearl Harbor battleship row


Perfect landing

Note: If you don't see any screenshots, only gifs under any of my posts, that's because the image upload site I used until now (Tinypic) was shut down. I'm working on it to fix it and upload the screenshots to somewhere else.


Well this was my 2nd and 3rd year recap, I wonder what will my 4th 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

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  • Profile image
    48.6k BMilan

    @DuceAnchovy I forgot a 'u' from "Inglourious", sorry about that, mistakes make us human.

    3.1 years ago
  • Profile image
    8,598 DuceAnchovy

    You'd expect someone to know how to spell their favourite movie titles. It's actually Inglourious Basterds, spelt wrong on purpose, instead of the correct way "inglorious bastards".

    3.1 years ago
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    13.8k Kangy

    Lol that spit got blown to messerschimtterines

    +1 3.4 years ago
  • Profile image
    48.6k BMilan

    @NormalPioneer What's the problem?

    3.4 years ago