Spring for RTS Players
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.
Ressources
In Spring ressources (Metal and Energy) are unlimited, unlike in most other RTS Games. This means that once you have buile i.e. a metal extraktor(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 exponentialy (always more and more) if you invest most of your ressources into it.
- You never end with no ressources 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 ressources, 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.
Espesialy for all OTA players, mexes have a radius, if you klick 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 a Commander (Com), the unique builder unit who has a D-Gun (strong if you have Energy). He is the fastest builder and you can select him with ctrl+c.
Construction Units (Builders) can help others and can also help Factories (Unitplants). So the Objects are finished faster.
There are different typs of Units which you build in different plants: vehicles, k-bots, air, hovercrafts and ships/subs. Most are selfexplaining, but Vehicles are heavier and faster then K-bots, but can't climb as steep cliffs as they can.
Radar
The big colored blimps 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 insted.
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.
