Spectacle MK.1

The very first true 2-plane stabilized targeting pod in Simpleplanes

With only two rotators, this targeting pod can look at anything, anywhere, at any orientation, at perfect azimuth.

Player Installation

READ THIS

1. Grab the pod by the red rotator and save as sub-assembly
2. Grab the RED flight computer left behind AND ALSO SAVE as sub-assembly
3. Put the pod where you want it on your plane
4. Copy the two variables and their value, paste it into your variables tab
5. (IMPORTANT) DO NOT YET connect the flight computer to anything, use fine tuner to position it in the dead center of the pod
   
6. (IMPORTANT) DO NOT connect the flight computer to moving parts of the pod, connect it to the MAIN FUSELAGE of your plane; it can be anywhere, just NOT ON THE ROTATING PARTS OF THE POD.
7. If you have done these steps correctly, your plane now has Simpleplanes most over-engineered and most accurate targeting pod.

Features

• The most accurate targeting pod on Simpleplanes
• The very first true 2-plane stabilized targeting pod
• Perfect azimuth to target every time
• Performance unaffected by aircraft rotation
• Tracking lead compensator to hold azimuth on moving targets
• Designed for bottom mounting on sub-sonic aircraft, drones, and helicopters
• Movement limit: +30 ~ -180 degrees elevation, 360 degree heading
• Minimalist targeting overlay

How it works

Basically

You first take the spherical coordinates that Simpleplanes gives you by default regarding target location and turn it back into Cartesian coordinates (x,y,z, aka Longitude, Latitude, Altitude). You then find out what the target location is with respect to your targeting pod's exact location. Next, you put the coordinates through a rotation matrix to account for all of the aircraft's potential movements. Lastly, you convert them back to spherical coordinates, through the eyes of the rotated frame, and tell the camera where to look.

Due to matrix algebra (linear algebra) being absolutely ass to work with using funky trees, I suspect it being the reason most simply used a third rotator to account for roll and called it a day. However, that's in fact a flawed method and results in wildly inaccurate tracking when the pitch angle of the aircraft approaches +90 or -90 degrees, and becomes untenable if it becomes that value, where roll angle will begin to not know what to do with itself.

Notes

I was under the influence when I decided to tempt the commandments of the universe; math.

I fucking won

Please report any bugs in the comment section or contact me on discord @kuatta4