Spring for RTS Players
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If you already played a lot of RTS Games, this is a fast guide to Spring and it is useful for OTA players. If you are new to RTS then you should read the Spring guide!.
I will only explain the major differences and leave the complicated stuff for you to learn by playing.
NOTE: This section tends toward OTA, XTA and AA content, and may be of lesser help with other Mods such as Gundam or E&E.
Resources
In Spring resources (Metal and Energy) are unlimited, unlike in most other RTS Games. This means that once you have built i.e. a metal extractor(Mex)/Solarplant you will get metal/energy out of it until it's destroyed (as long as you have Energy for the Mex). There are 2 major following Issues because of this:
- Your economy will grow exponentially (always more and more) if you invest most of your resources into it.
- You never end up with no resources to gather, but the battle builds up till one side is overpowered.
At the top off the screen there is a grey (metal) and yellow (energy) bar, these show you how full your storages are. There is a green (income) and red (usage) number next to each. If one or both bars are full, you are wasting resources, so you should be using more of them. If Metal is empty you should get more, but Energy should never be empty, because then all Metal producing Facilities stop working.
Especially for all OTA players, mexes have a radius, if you press f4, you will see green where there is metal (the greener the better) and red where your mexes are already collecting.
Units
You start with the Commander (Comm), the unique builder unit who has the D-Gun. The D-Gun can destroy *anything* in one hit. The D-Gun, however, requires large amounts of energy, which is critical at the early stages in which it's use is more likely (to defend agaisnt rushes and the like). The Commander is furthermore the fastest builder that you start with (although better builders are avaible at techlevel 2, later in the game); you can snap to him with CTRL+C if he gets lost. Beware, though, because the Commander is ALSO a walking bomb - when he dies, he takes EVERYTHING around him with him.
Construction Units ("Builders" or "con units" or just "conbots") can help eachother building - the more conbots you put on a building, the faster it'll be constructed. Be aware that the rate at which metal and energy is consumed also increases - you cannot build if you do not have anything to build with. The same can be done to help factories build units - simply assign the conbot to Guard (hotkey G) the factory, and the conbot will automatically help build whatever it is the factory is building.
There are, generally speaking, five kinds of units in Spring: Vehicles (tanks, cars, what have you), K-Bots ("infantry" robots, if you will), Hovercrafts (all-terrain tanks), aircraft (have wings, will fly) and Ships (including submarines). Vehicles are generally heavier and more hard-hitting than K-Bots, but since the K-Bots have legs, they can get to places the vehicles can't. Similarly, the hovercrafts are all capable of travelling on both land and water, but like the tanks, they are unable to traverse cliffsides and steep terrain. What's more, hovercrafts are generally lighter than tanks in regards to armor and armament. Aircrafts are generally more expensive and less deadly than vehicles and K-Bots, but they have the advantage of fast and unlimited movement.
Ships are just big. Lots of armor, lots of guns. And they sail.
Radar
The big colored blips on your screen are radar dots. With radar covarage you can see things out of los, but only as moving blips. Radar doesn't go through hills, there are radar jammers and under water there is sonar instead.
Side Notes
To improve your gameplay, watch replays of good players. But you should also watch your own, to see where your problems are. (spring.exe->not server->name of replay.sdf enter; + and - to change the speed)
With shift you can que up things. (A must in this game)
There are keybord shortcuts (uikeys.txt), and you can make some yourself with the selection editor.
For a general Idea of how to start building look at the Base building tips.
And if you aren't a good strategist, you can look into the Spring guide! (long).
If you have more Questions look in the FAQ, if theres nothing there, you are welcome to ask me (Metaltrash)
I hope I could help you and have fun battling. Feel free to edit, or enhance this i.e. with little explaining pictures. It is supposed to be short so that its an easy quick read.
