Today (november 12) exactly 5 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!

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Attention: This is going to be a kinda long post. (well, still not as long as earlier years tho, in fact, compared to those, pretty short)

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My first deleted post (hopefully the only)

Those of you who follow me for a while now, know that one of my favourite ships is battleship USS Arizona. I've built this ship several times (and probably will in the future too), and inspired by my ship wreck project from last year, I decided to now build the wreck version of the ship. Since the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack was coming up, I figured it would a great date to release this build (and forgot about the website's no memorials post).
I posted the build on the 7th of December, 2021, on the 80th anniversary of the attack and made sure to dedicate it to those who died during the attack. This, unfortunately got my post quickly removed by the moderators due to it breaking the rules. I accept the decision, and as per the advice of a moderator, I re-uploaded the post as unlisted, which you can access from my Update post or >here<

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An old dream come true

I started year a bit slow but it was worth the wait, because I made an old dream of mine come true:
I built a replica of the Old Reliable, the mighty RMS Olympic and even her sister, the infamous RMS Titanic.
I intended these ships to be my absolute masterpieces, a peak of my skill and abilities. Thanks to the new hardware I got last year, I was able to push the limits of the part count, allowing much greater detail. Another great addition I made, was thanks to the fuselage slicing feature that was introduced into the game. Thanks to this feature, I was able to replicate the hull's curves greatly and very smoothly while also spare some parts at some places.
I also made a big step by adding a fully interactive, VR friendly bridge on both ships.

The majestic sisters

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The Masters' chat

Thanks to my efforts with the Olympic and other projects, I reached another milestone in my SP career, as I was granted membership at the Simpleplanes Masters Chat discord server, a great honor for sure, and I am very grateful for it.

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Not as planned

Unfortunately, not everything went as I wanted it to. I wanted to release a VR friendly (slightly less parts) and mobile friendly (much less parts) version of both ships to make them more accessible, but unfortunately, I couldn't achieve these goals. (later about the reason of this)
Another goal I wanted to make is a sinking version of Titanic, where the entire sinking is simulated with life boat launches, funnels falling, lights going out, and of course, the break-up.
I started working on all of these projects, but they were all halted for the time being. I'm hoping I could restart working on them in the future.

Titanic hitting the iceberg in SP

Titanic sinking

Lifeboat launch on Titanic

The work in progress break-up

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A long hiatus and personal successes

The reason I couldn't achieve many of these building goals, is because I had a lot going on irl, but they were great personal successes, so I'd like to share a few with you all:
Last year was my final year at college, and I successfully graduated as a Computer Science Engineer (now I can legitimately say "Trust me, I'm an engineer" hehe).
As a result of this, I also managed to very quickly find a job at a very nice tech company, which I'm also quite happy about.
I also moved into my own apartment this year, another great milestone in my life.

I'm terribly sorry to those who were waiting for promised projects such as the mobile friendly versions of some of my ships, or the building of requested ships, but I hope you understand that this year meant a lot of changes in my life, so SP was not my primary focus. But I'm hoping that next year, I can focus a bit more on SP and release more builds.

Last minute upload

I did try to make this year a bit more productive, as a result, I continued and finished a project that I started around the time I finished the Olympic and the Titanic, a fictional tug boat, the Sisyphus (named after the mythological figure who was punished by Hades to keep pushing an immense boulder up a hill for all eternity.
The ship turned out to have relatively low part count but very well detailed. Just like Olympic and Titanic, this ship also has a fully interactive and VR compatible wheel house while also featuring some other neat details.

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Closing thoughts

This year was not too productive in terms of builds, but I did achieve some great achievements both in-game and irl, which makes me think this year was still a success. I do hope though, that next year I can release more builds

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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!

The SMS Leitha monitor, a ship I started over a year ago. I'm slowly but steadily making progress with her, and I hope I can publish her this year

A little sneak peek into the Leitha, she will feature some nice interior spaces like this little kitchen section

Some of my close friends know, that I have been working on a sci-fi story in my free time, for quite a few years now. At some point this year, I was a bit bored, so I decided to make a quick, simple rendition of one of my space ship designs from this story

Another old, but not forgotten project, the replica of the HMS Speedy sailing ship. Hopefully, I can finish her next year too.

The sinking Titanic from the view of a life boat

A scene I recreated from Cameron's Titanic movie, a shot of the ship from very far away. I find this scene to be very moving, because it just shows how desperate their situation was, with nothing but the vast ocean in every direction around them.

over 2000 years of ship building in one picture: Mintlynx's Trireme and my Olympic

This screenshot was originally made as promotional material on the Port SP discord server, but it turned out to be so good I wanted to share it with all of you

Playing around with other people's builds: sometime, one's just gotta enjoy the game, not just build. I spawned an AI convoy (by pancelvonat) build and an AI u-boot build here and used a nice, simple PBY-5 Catalina (by masotan15) plane, to hunt the u-boot

Sisters reunited: I made this picture just for fun when Olympic was still work in progress. I put some floatees on my Titanic and Britannic wreck models, to make it look like as if they were raised from the seabed.

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Well this was my 5th year recap, I wonder what will my 6th 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