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). |
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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 selected units, 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(this section needs expanding).
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.
Active State
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.
Attack(A)
Stop(S)
DGun(D)
Cloak(K)
Move(M)
Patrol(P)
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.
