Using Spring

More Exaustive Decription of Contols, Interface and Features. For Basic information, check the most current README.html (should be mirrored here)or Getting_Started.

For more advanced/current information check the most recent changelog or the taspring/spring forums.

Camera Controls

There are four camera modes in Spring. To change camera modes use CTRL+Middle Button (Mouse 3) or CTRL+J. Middle button or J toggle "free look" mode for the current camera view. (expand this seciton to include idividual controls for each camera mode)

Selections/Groups/Group Commands/Group AI

The Selection Editor

SelectionEditor.exe is a program installed in your install directory, which is used for editing your selectkeys.txt configuration file, allowing you to make your own shortcut keys for selecting/filtering selection.

This forum topic that should be duplicated here, with cleaning up and additions made... and permission probably.

Default Selection Controls

Selecting/Deselecting Units

Unless you have issued a pending command(see Left Mouse Control (Mouse 1)), left-clicking(Mouse Button 1) a unit will clear the current selection and select the left-clicked unit, if a spot with no valid selection is clicked(empty space, ground, unowned units), the current selection will just be cleared. Left-clicking and dragging will draw a box, any units within this box will be selected when you release the mouse button.

Shift+Left-clicking(including dragging a select box), unless you have a pending command, will add units to the current selection.

CTRL+Left-clicking (including dragging a select box), unless you have a pending command, will remove units from the current selection.

Unless the unit is in a group Double-left-clicking will select all visible(camera bounds) units of the clicked type(Shift+Double-left-clicking will add all units of the double-clicked unit's type to the current selection).

CTRL+Z is a shortcut (which can be eddited in Selection Editor) to select all owned units of the current selected type. For example, if a peewee and a brawler are selected, all peewees and brawlers will be selected.

CTRL+A is a shortcut (which can be eddited in Selection Editor) to select all owned units.

"Tooltips" are displayed in the bottom left of the current interface, if units are selected this information is the sum of all information about the selection (aka, select a bank of 5 solar collectors and it will show the total health and total energy being produced). If you mouse-over a "build-pic" in a units command list it will show you the costs and stats associated with the unit represented by the "build-pic". If you have no selection, the tooltip will show information about what your mouse is over at that time (unit stats if it's a unit, otherwise information about the terrain).

Commander Selected Terrain Hover (No Units Selected)

Metal Extractor Buildpic Hover Repair Command Hover

Group of units Selected

Basic Unit Groups

Spring supports what could be called quick control groups. Basically you can assign the currently selected units to a numbered group with CTRL+# (where # is a number key) which will put that number(#) above all selected units, then later, you can quickly select these units by pressing SHIFT+#.

If a factory is set to a group, all units built by this factory will also be automatically assigned to this group.

Units can only be in one group at a time, so assigning a new group number to a unit will remove it from it's current group.

Assigning a unit to a group overides normal double-clicking behaviour, if you double-click a member of a group, it's group is selected instead of the units of the same type in range.

Also note, when you CTRL+# a group of units, the old group with that number will no longer exist. Therefore if you intend to add aditional units to a group, you must first SHIFT+# the current members and then add (by holding SHIFT) the additional units to the selection group and the use CTRL+# to re-assign all the units to that group.

Issuing Orders

Left Mouse Control (Mouse 1)

As covered in Selecting/Deselecting Units, left clicking is the primary control for selecting units. If, however, a pending order is issued using the menu that appears on the left side of the screen or using a Hotkey, the mouse pointer will change to a symbol representing this action. If there is a pending order and you left click on a valid target for the action the selcted units will perform this action on that target, otherwise the units will "do their best" to perform the action(which could mean just cancelling the Order.

The menu will show all available commands for all selected units, except for wait and self destruct, in the menu, mousing over a menu item will also display the Tooltip for this item.

Right Mouse Control (Mouse 2)

Right clicking will always give the selected units the default action for the target, if the order is invalid for some members of the group, it may or may not choose a suitable action for those units to perform.

Queueing Orders

Use Shift to queue orders. Queueing orders means that you can tell a unit, or a group of units to do multiple tasks, and they will go off and do them with out any more input from you. Just say you want a Construction Vehicle to build a line of defences around your base. Select the defence building you want, hold shift and click around a few times. The construction vehicle will now go and build (or try to build) all of the selected structures, and you can just sit back and watch. You can queue each and every type of order there is in game, with no limits. It would be possible (but not very smart) to order your commander to build a whole base for you while you go off and have lunch!

Another use for this, is for issuing complicated movement orders. Say you wan your army to attck your enemy, but you want to attack from the side, where they are their weakest. just issuing one move command to attack the side of their base would send our units moving THROUGH your enemys base to try to get to the side. This is not very good. But if you tell your units to move to a location AWAY from the base and them attack from the side, by queuing up two or more move commands, this problem can be successfully avoided. Or you could tel your units to attack certain buildings in a certain order, for instance attack all the outlying metal extracors, and them go for the power plants in the base, they will follow these orders oblivious to anything else, while you go in and attack the other important things.

learing how to sucessfully queue orders is a vital part of any game, and you will be lost with out it.

List of Orders, Behaviour, Valid Targets, Defaults and Hotkeys

It is assumed that if a unit does not have an ability it will not be it's default action, priorities have been noted.

Attack(A)

Orders the unit to attack the target or location. If ordered to attack a unit, the selected unit or building will keep firing at the targeted unit/building until it is dead. If the targeted unit moves out of range, or out of sight(sp?), the selected unit will move to target the targeted unit again. If ordered to attack ground, the unit will never stop until told to do so by the user. Note that units automatically attack any visible enemy units inside their range, and will pursue them(depending on their Move State (see below)) to a certain distance before returning to their selected location.

Capture

This command is used by any construction unit. The construction unit will move uop to the targeted unit or building, and attempt to convert it to your team. So if the enemy has built a Geothermal power plant , and forgotten to protect it, grab a near by construction unit and try to capture it! Note that this takes quite a while, and it is not a good idea to try to capture a unit that is shooting at you.

Cloak(K)

Makes a unit inivisble to the enemys units. Enemy units will not be albe to shoot a unit while it is cloaked, but can still shoot it if it is on radar(I think?). Note that this uses an immense amount of energy, and unts cannot shoot while cloaked(?).

DGun(D)

Disintegrator Gun. A weapon held by the commander. It is a very powerfull gun that will kill ANY unit in game. Use it in early game to ward off rushes, or against super units like the Krogoth, or the Goliath. Be careful, as it also destroys your units and buildings at the same time! Uses alot of energy to fire, so make sure you have the required energy before attmpting this, cause if it oes not work, your commander will be a sitting duck.

High Trajectory

If this option is available, click the button to toggle this state.
A unit with High Trajectory mode enabled will shoot almost vertically, allowing it to shoot over hills as well as other units and masking the direction/source of the shot.
Using this mode reduces accuracy greatly and also the increased distance of the higher trajectory will increase the amount of time a shot will take to reach it's target.

Reclaim(E)

"Sucks in the meatal/energy of a unit/feature and add it to your storage."
Valid Targets are enemy units, owned units, ally units, features and wreakage.
Default Action for wreackage for units without Ressurect capability.
Default Action for features.
Default Action for enemy units for units without Attack or Capture capability.
Dragging as an area command draws a circle in which all features and wreakage will be reclaimed.
Reclaiming a unit will slowly drain the life from the unit.
Energy and metal will be added to storage when reclaiming process is complete.
Assigning a group of units to reclaim will increase the speed at which the target is reclaimed.

Repair(R)

When repairing a damaged unit, uses a percentage of the metal and energy costs associated with a damaged unit to increase the speed at which a unit regains health. When repairing a unit that is still being constructed the unit will help build the target, increasing the speed at which the unit is completed. The repair command is cancelled when the target's health reaches 100%, so if a unit under construction is damaged the repair command will complete the building of the target and then continue to repair until the unit is at full health. Valid targets are any damaged units(need to check but I believe this includes enemy units) and units currently being constucted. Default behaviour for owned and ally units that are not at full health, including units being constructed by other units and factories. The more units that are assigned to repair another unit, the faster the unit will be constructed/restored to full health, but the energy and metal costs will increase accordingly.

Repeat

Moves any orders that have been completed to the back of the order queue. For instance, If you tell a unit to more to one side of the base, and then to the other side of the base, it would keep going back and forwards forever, because when it completed the first move command, it would place that command at the back of the queue again. This is most usefull when building units. If you want a factory to continuously pump out a Sampson, then a Flash, then two Stumpy's, turn on repeat, and watch the units pump out!

Stop(S)

Makes them stop any queued commands, and stop moving. They will not automatically stop attacking units, unless their fire state is set to Hold Fire.