Spring (engine)
| Jump | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio | Spring Community |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
July 7, 2007 |
| platform | Windows , Linux , Mac OS X |
| genre | Game engine |
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer |
| control | Mouse keyboard |
| system advantages preconditions |
2.0 GHz CPU with SSE , OpenGL 1.4 compatible graphics card , 768 MB RAM , 500 MB hard disk space . |
| medium | Download |
| language | English |
| Current version | 101.0 (February 29, 2016) |
Spring (formerly Total Annihilation: Spring ) is an open-source - real-time strategy - Engine used by the Swedish Yankspankers as 3D Total Annihilation Demo Viewer was started.
development
Spring originally began development in 2004 as a game called TA Spring by a group of developers called Clan SY . The already developed Total Annihilation Demo Viewer served as the basis . The original goal was to get all mods and units (also from third party developers) of the game Total Annihilation (short: TA) to work. When this goal was nearly achieved in 2006, the focus of development shifted towards a general RTS engine beyond TA. With version 0.73b1 this was reflected in the name when the project was renamed from TA Spring to Spring , also to break away from the proprietary TA material. A growing fan and developer community now does most of the work in developing newer versions of the engine.
properties
Spring can be played alone against AI players as well as online with players from all over the world. In addition, work continues on many new features not included in the TA model. The following is planned and partially already implemented:
- A new unit format was created, replacing the obsolete .3do (Total Annihilation Format), with UV mapping , unit lighting and better support for team colors.
- A new card format similar to Warcraft III .
- A new GUI as the current one is based on the original TA .
It should be emphasized that the engine and games are already fully downloadable and playable without configuration.
Spring is mainly played as a multiplayer game over the Internet or LAN connections (the latter requires additional server software). So far, there are few single player missions that are implemented using the Lua scripting language . There are also some AI computer opponents available with whom you can play offline, replace additional players in multiplayer mode or fight against them together.
Course of the game
middle : view from diagonally above onto part of the playing field
top left : overview map of the entire playing field
bottom left : command menu
bottom middle : units of the selected Group
bottom right : display of the other players,
top right : resource display in bar form
The course of the game described below applies to games based on the basic game Total Annihilation (also referred to as * A Mods), other games for the Spring engine sometimes differ significantly from some of the principles shown.
At the beginning of the game the player starts with a powerful building unit, the Commander. This then builds raw material mining devices and production buildings, which in turn can produce combat and construction units.
The commander
It constantly produces some units of metal and energy of its own accord and can erect some simple buildings. It differs considerably from the starting units of other RTS games, because it is equipped with the most powerful weapon in the game, the so-called disintegrator gun or D-GUN for short , which takes every unit of any size with a single shot. However, the range is rather small. He is also one of the fastest building units in the game and when he dies, it leaves behind an atomic explosion that destroys its immediate surroundings. This is used by some players as a strategic tool to destroy enemy bases. This tactic, also known as Com-Bomb , is considered to be rather unpopular and is sometimes easy to prevent.
raw materials
There are two raw materials, energy and metal, whereby energy can be converted into metal with special buildings. The player is shown how much of both he currently has, how much he is gaining per second, and how much he is currently spending per second on production projects and construction contracts. These consume certain quantities of raw materials per second, so not all raw materials have to be available at the start of construction. According to this, one counts on the current income rather than only on his current wealth, as is usual in other games.
The construction time can be seen as an additional raw material. Since it is possible to support factories or building units with additional units or special stationary nano-towers and thus to complete the building project faster.
Energy can be obtained from wind, solar and geothermal collectors, tidal power plants and later fusion reactors, metal is either mined on metal spots on the map using mines (which can be upgraded) or generated from excess energy using so-called metal generators . The metal deposits on the map are inexhaustible. It is also possible to recover metal from destroyed units and buildings.
The metal cards are also worth mentioning , these are maps whose entire base is made of metal, comparable to the money maps of other games. You can build metal mines at any point, which quickly turns the game into a pure material battle.
Technology tree
The technology tree in the game based on Total Annihilation is extensive, but still very easy to understand. There are five directions: Ships, robots, vehicles, planes and hovercrafts , with several levels of technology. Each type of unit has its own factories. These can be set up by the Commander or other building units. In addition, each building unit can establish an improved factory of its kind (e.g. a construction vehicle an improved vehicle factory) that enables the production of stronger units.
Nano rays
Within the story of the original game it was explained that in the future everything will be built with so-called nano-rays. These consist of thousands upon thousands of nano robots that gradually form the desired structure. Since these are compatible with each other, each structural unit can help with any construction or production project with its nano-beam, so the commander with his very powerful nano-beam can, for example, actively support a factory in its production, whereby it produces much faster. So you usually do not build several factories, but additional building units that support the factories in production. Not only combat units can patrol in this game, but also building units. They will then help out with any construction site they come across or repair damaged structures and units.
Features
The features include:
- Huge battles, where up to 5000 units per player are supported and theoretically 250 players per game are possible.
- A freely positionable camera with different view modes (e.g. like that of the original TA , or like Total War ).
- Realistic and detailed terrain. Many maps are created with programs like L3DT or Terragen .
- Deformable terrain. Explosions and impacts deform the surface and leave behind crater landscapes, depending on the mod settings.
- Lots of mods , from the original TA Mod, to rebalanced mods like Absolute Annihilation to Spaceship Wars in TA: Final Frontier , realistic warfare today in Spring: 1944, and Star Wars battles in Star Wars: Imperial Winter .
- A large developer community that regularly releases further developments, maps, models, patches and new game modes.
- Automatic recording of all games as demos in a separate file format.
- Dynamic explosions, weapons and light sources on units.
- Any number of complex actions can be planned in advance for a unit, in addition to movements, for example, construction projects, patrols and attacks. You can also transfer these orders to a factory, which then passes them on to all units built there.
- Numerous innovative multiplayer features such as B. Setting of markers visible for team members, direct "painting" on the map (for example to coordinate attack routes).
- Any number of computer-controlled AI players can be loaded via DLLs when the game starts.
- A freely configurable graphical user interface and lobby, as well as a large number of widgets .
Group AIs
A group AI (Group AI) is a computer assistant to whom individual units can be handed over to carry out smaller and more annoying tasks. Of course, the units remain completely under the control of the player. Some examples:
- Metal Maker AI This AI is very useful for resource management. It automatically switches on all assigned buildings that convert energy into metal when there is excess energy, and switches them off again when there is a lack of energy so that no energy is wasted.
- Simple Formation AI Allows the units to move in formation, which is not yet implemented in this form in the main program.
- Central Build AI It divides building orders hierarchically, which means that the player no longer tells each building unit individually what it should build where, but only tells the entire group where something should be. The units closest to that location then advance there and build the building.
These group AIs can be written by every programmer and are placed as DLLs in a certain folder, where they are (de) activated in the game, so everyone can develop and use their own group AIs. However, there is disagreement in the community as to whether this should continue to be possible without restriction. As this can of course give some people significant advantages. They are thinking about only allowing group AIs that are available to everyone.
Selection editor
Also a new development. This can be used to create complex unit selection scripts. Examples of this include:
- Choose from the units that have already been selected those that have less than x% life energy (useful for pulling damaged units out of battle and repairing them)
- Select a single idle unit.
- Select all bombers
In principle, almost all conceivable selection modes are possible. All key combinations of the original Total Annihilation are already implemented.
Games
There are many games for Spring , including:
- Absolute annihilation: Spring . This is a port of the popular Absolute Annihilation mod to Spring . It is being developed by Caydr. It's a rebalanced version of the original Total Annihilation with some additional units.
- Balanced annihilation . Most played game, it emerged from Absolute Annihilation after it was discontinued.
- XTA . The earlier standard mod from Spring was developed by the SYs. It's also a mod that rebalances the original units.
- Zero-K (formerly Complete Annihilation ). The developers of this game have set themselves the goal of exchanging all of the old original Total Annihilation models for their own creations.
- Spring: 1944 . This game is about World War II and features realistic units from the USA, Great Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union.
- Star Wars: Imperial Winter . A game that lets the player re-enact battles from Star Wars with units from the films. The game is in beta.
- The Cursed . This game is a mixture of classic science fiction real-time strategy and dark fantasy elements. Two sides fight for supremacy on the battlefield: the undead "Cursed" and the human Imperial Guard. The game is ready to play and is being actively developed.
- Gundam RTS . This game is based on the popular Japanese robot anime .
- Chicken Defense . In this game you fight alone or with several players against an increasing number of "Chicken" until the queen comes as the final boss. Chicken Defense is not a separate game; it is offered with most games. For example, there is Balanced Annihilation Chicken Defense. Such a chicken defense version is available for most popular games.
There are also a variety of other games and mutators.
Web links
- Spring site (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Sigfried Arnold: Interview with the TA Spring makers . www.rebell.at. May 13, 2006. Archived from the original on September 26, 2007. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
- ↑ Welcome to the temporary TA Spring site! ( Memento from August 15, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (August 2004)
- ↑ New spring version, 0.73b1 ( Memento of October 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) "Notice we dropped the 'TA', because we like to move away from TA copyrighted material. You still need to own TA for the listed downloads, but a completely free GPL version will be released later. " (May 2007)
- ↑ Playtime statistics for the last seven days ( memento of the original from July 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. after games
- ↑ Imperial Winter Beta Release
- ↑ The Cursed Windows, Linux game ( en ). Retrieved December 8, 2018.
