Spring Tanks

About

Spring Tanks started as an experiment but is slowly evolving into a complete game. As it is still being worked on, it is a bit rough around the edges but playable.

Some screenshots can seen be in the media section

 

Click here for a video!

You can play it in both Single & Multiplayer. The Singleplayer is not so much fun because the AI is not very good.

The lobbychannel is #springtanks (type /join #springtanks into lobby chat)

The forum is here

Gameplay Description

Capture the Flag with Tanks. How cool is that? So cool that there is a comic about it.

Each player starts with a squad of tanks, a base and two flags.

Outmanouver the enemy and pick up his flags by touching them with a unit and carry them to your base to score. Defend your own flags.

The player or team with the highest score after a set timelimit wins.

One could say the gameplay is a strategy game mixed with elements from first person shooters and sports like football.

Squad System & Wave Respawn

Every 30 seconds all destroyed units are respawned.

The respawn timer is shown as a countdown and progress bar in the top right corner. You can not get more units than your initial squad.

The Units:

File:Knorke Springtanks startsquadwithnames.png‎

Blitz - Car

The Blitz Car is unarmed and fragile. With its high speed and good maneuverability it is perfect for sneaky flag capture runs and scouting.

TakTak - Medium Tank

This unit is the basis of your squad. It is armed with an automatic dual cannon that offers a high rate of fire. Armor and mobility are average.

Thulsa - Heavy Tank

A very cumbersome unit. With the large cannon and heavy armor this tank dominates the battlefield. Downside are the low speed and slow turret rotation. One hit destroys a Blitz Car - if the Thulsa can catch it.

Flag

Drive near an enemy flag to pick it up then bring it to your Base to score a point. If the flag carrier is destroyed, the flag falls to the ground. There it can be picked up again or the flag owner can touch it to return it to his base. Protect your flags! Flags are indestructible.

Base

The base is a respawn point for destroyed units and flags. You also have to bring enemy flags here to score a point. The Base is indestructible.

Basic Gameplay Tips

• Pay attention to the respawn timer:

If there are only few seconds left and you rush for the flag, chances are enemy units will respawn near you and destroy your flag carrier. Sometimes it is better to wait until the enemy has left his respawn area and then go for an easy flag grab.

• • Similiar, the timer can help you decide if you need to retreat to protect your flag or if the respawning reinforcements will clear the situation.
• When you play with the "place start position ingame" option, chose carefully.
  • If your units respawn all the time in craters or in trees, you only got yourself to blame. So chose a spot with flat land, clear of obstacles.
  • If a unit still gets stuck, you can selfdestruct it: select unit and press crtl+d to make it respawn in the next wave.

Battle Tactics

• Thulsa Tanks have splash damage and kill a TakTak with 2 hits, only 1 hit is needed for a Blitz Car.
• A slowly retreating Thulsa Tank can kill a large number of TakTaks that attack in a line.
• If you need to kill a Thulsa with TakTaks, swarm it and do not get picked off one by one.
• Lure the enemy away from his base so that you can go for the flag with Blitz Cars from the flank or from the back.
• Pay attention to your attention: If a battle is lost and no advantage can be gained, do no bother with it.

Instead concentrate on the units that can make a difference.

Advice for Hosting

• The modoption "gametimelimit" decides how long a game lasts. You can select from 1 to 90 minutes.
• Maps should be somewhat open so that it is actually possible to reach the enemy flag.
• The distance between Bases greatly influences how the game plays. See the SinglePlayer Challenges for reference.
• On most maps fixed startpositions are too far apart and often cramped in the map cornsers: Use custom startboxes.

Playing vs AI

It is advised to first try the challenges/"missions" in the Single Player Menu:

1) Start Spring.exe, select Mod: Spring Tanks Map: does not matter (smaller=loads faster but w/e)

2) Click "Test the game"

3) Now the Spring Tanks Single Player Menu should come up. Select one of the matchups and click "Start Game"

4) Spring restarts and you can play! :shock:

Single Player by hosting a battle in a lobby:

• Dont. Try the pre setup matchups first.
• The only AI that knows how to play Spring Tanks is the "Borked Advancer" AI. Even this AI is not very good.
• It takes some experiments until you find good startpositions that make the AI actually fun to play against.

Get the game

First of, the Spring engine must already be installed.

Game file: http://www.knorke.darkstars.co.uk/springtanks/SpringtanksRC4_1.sdz or http://springfiles.com/spring/games/spring-tanks

If you know how to use rapid, the rapid tag is: springtanks:latest

Mappack: http://knorke.darkstars.co.uk/springtanks/SpringTanks_Mappack1.zip
The map pack is needed for single player.
The maps are also chosen to play good in multiplayer.

The included maps in the mappack are:

• aliendesert
• castles
• eye-horus-v2
• moonq20x
• mountdustmorev3

Learn where files go

Hotkeys

hotkeys specific to Spring Tanks:

 v		select units carrying a flag
 b		send unit to home base
 esc		single player only: open/close the Spring Tanks single player menu

Usefull default hotkeys, regular Spring players will not need to read this. Most important are:

 return/enter	chat
 tab		toggle complete map view (zooms out to show complete map)
 s		stop. selected unit stops shoting and moving.
 shift+clicking	make waypoints
 f		fight: while traveling to destination, unit will engage all enemies on its path
 a		attack / shot ground
 crtl+d		blew up selected unit (ie if stuck)
 c		cockpit view: controll the unit in (buggy) first person mode
 ctrl+z		select all units of the same type as current selection
 p		patrol. set up waypoints for a patrol route that the unit will circle on
 shif+esc	bring up exit menu
 F6		sound on/off
 pause		pause the game. its the key next to print & scroll lock.

Trouble?

Such a little troublemaker!

low fps? lol. should not use more cpu/gpu than any other spring game.

If there is a ~1 seconde stutter at game start, that is because of the texture being loaded. Cant do much about it.

If the game game crashes when starting a new game in Single Player, make sure you have the map. (next version will have a check)

Some usefull commands to be entered in chat:

 /advshading 0	no reflections on units. can give large fps boost
 /advshading 1	turn reflections on units on
 /shadows 0	no shadows
 /shadows 1	full shadows
 /shadows 2	only shadows from units, no terrain shadows
 /water 0	most basic water graphics

Can't Fix

Starting new games with Single player menu does not work on Mac OS.

TL;DR

Tanks. Capture The Flag. Startposition must be flat and free of obstacles. glhf.

Single Player: Read Playing vs AI