SPRING(6)

📦 version 105.0.1, in ubuntu jammy

💖 SPRING(6) — Games 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because this is the manual page for spring (section 6, Games) and she is long. It's the Default Engine build of an open source RTS game engine, and she's iconic, she's customizable, she's a whole ecosystem. Let's go 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

spring — an open source RTS game engine, Default Engine edition 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

spring [-f|--fullscreen] [-w|--window] [-m|--minimise] [--safemode]
[-s|--server IP_OR_HOSTNAME] [-p|--projectiledump] [-t|--textureatlas]
[--benchmark TIME [--benchmarkstart TIME]] [-i|--isolation]
[--isolation-dir PATH] [-n|--name STRING] [-C|--config FILE] [SCRIPT]

spring --list-ai-interfaces

spring --list-skirmish-ais

spring --list-def-tags

spring --list-config-vars

spring [-h|--help]

spring --sync-version

spring [-V|--version]

like yes, she has that many modes. main character energy fr fr 👑

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Spring is a versatile 3D RTS game engine. She uses extensively Lua for scripting game-specific code, which is the whole reason nearly every aspect of the engine is customizable — from the GUI, to unit AI, to pathfinding. literally everything is a vibe you can tweak 💅

She's mainly designed around online multiplayer games, but no cap, you can also play her in single-player mode against AIs. solo queen behavior 🎀

The engine can run graphics and simulation in two separate threads, depending on the game and engine settings. On multi-core systems this will typically boost the performance. threads slay, periodt 🔥

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -h, --help — Print the options help message and exit 🫶
  • -V, --version — Display program version and exit ✨
  • --sync-version — Display program sync version (for online gaming) and exit 🌈
  • --nocolor — Disables colorized stdout 🙈
  • --quiet — Ignore unrecognized arguments 🤫
  • -f, --fullscreen — Run in fullscreen mode 🖥️
  • -w, --window — Run in windowed mode 🪟
  • -b, --minimise — Start in background (minimised) 💤
  • --safemode — Turns off many things that are known to cause problems (i.e. on PC/Mac's with lower-end graphic cards) 🛟
  • -s, --server IP_OR_HOSTNAME — Run as a server on the given address 🌐
  • -t, --textureatlas — Dump each finalised textureatlas into textureatlasN.tga 🖼️
  • --benchmark TIME — Enable benchmark mode (writes a benchmark.data file). The given number specifies the timespan to test ⏱️
  • --benchmarkstart TIME — Benchmark start time in minutes ⏳
  • -i, --isolation — Limit the data-dir (games & maps) scanner to one directory (see --isolation-dir and the SPRING_ISOLATED env var) 🧊
  • --isolation-dir PATH — Specify the isolation-mode data-dir (see --isolation and the SPRING_ISOLATED env var) 📁
  • --write-dir PATH — Specify the directory used for all saving ✍️
  • -n, --name NAME — Set your player name 🏷️
  • -C, --config FILE — Exclusive configuration file 📄
  • --list-ai-interfaces — Dump a list of available AI Interfaces to STDOUT 🤖
  • --list-skirmish-ais — Dump a list of available Skirmish AIs to STDOUT ⚔️
  • --list-def-tags — Dump a list of available Definition Tags in JSON-format to STDOUT 🏷️
  • --list-ceg-classes — Dump a list of available Projectile classes in JSON-format to STDOUT 💥
  • --list-config-vars — Dump all default config vars in JSON-format to STDOUT ⚙️
  • -g, --game GAME — instantly start the GAME with a minimal setup. Requires --map to be present, too. Sets the modoption minimalsetup = 1 🚀
  • -m, --map MAP — Requires --game to be set, too. see --game 🗺️
heads up bestie: the synopsis says -m|--minimise but the options list says -b, --minimise and -m is --map. I am not touching that, I'm just reporting the lore as it was written 🙈

✨ FILES ✨

  • ~/.config/spring/ — The default data-directory (see section DATA DIR). 🏠
  • ~/.config/spring/springsettings.cfg — Contains the users settings for the engine, for things like graphic and sound. 🎚️
  • /etc/spring/datadir — Contains the : separated paths to additional data-dirs (see section DATA DIR). 🗂️

✨ ENVIROMENT VARIABLES ✨

(yes that's how the section is spelled in the real page, we respect her 🫶)

  • SPRING_LOG_SECTIONS — Selective functionality to change the verbosity (separated by ,). 📢
  • SPRING_WRITEDIR — Define custom primary write DATA DIR. Place where spring saves logs, settings, ... 📝
  • SPRING_DATADIR — Adds additional DATA DIRs Spring will search for files (separated by :). 🔍
  • SPRING_ISOLATED — If defined, Spring will stop searching files outside of the binaries directory. If it is set to a valid directory path, it will be used as the isolation directory. See the --isolation and the --isolation-dir options. 🧊
  • SPRING_NOCOLOR — Same as spring --nocolor. 🎨

✨ SCRIPT ✨

Can either be a: 👀

  • Spring URL (spring://[username[:password]@]host[:port]) 🔗
  • start script (often named script.txt) 📜
  • replay file (*.sdfz) ▶️
  • save game (*.ssf) 💾

✨ PORTABLE MODE ✨

An all-in-one-folder setup, which allows to run Spring without installation. To do so all relevant files (binaries & basecontent) must be in a single folder, esp. spring(.exe), libunitsync.so/unitsync.dll and springsettings.cfg. Spring will then use the all-in-one-folder for writing and won't do so anywhere else on the system, but it may open other files & directories for reading. 🧳

✨ ISOLATION MODE ✨

Not to confuse with Portable Mode, this mode disables all automatic Data Dir scanning and limits reading & writing to a single folder. This is very useful when games want to run separate from other Spring games. Isolation mode can be enabled by placing an empty isolated.txt next to the spring executable or by setting SPRING_ISOLATED env var. 🧊✨

✨ DATA DIRS ✨

Data directories are searched for content, and among other things, may contain: 🔎

  • config files ⚙️
  • logs 📜
  • games 🎮
  • maps 🗺️
  • AIs 🤖
  • cache 🗃️

Sorted by priority the engine may use multiple data directories, but it will use only the one with the highest priority as writable, to write cache & log files to. The hierarchy the engine loads DATA DIRs in can be grouped in 3 sections: 👑

🌈 the priority tea (normal / portable / isolation)

  • priority: high — custom user write
    • normal: -e directory defined via --write-dir, SPRING_WRITEDIR envvar
    • portable: -e directory defined via --write-dir, SPRING_WRITEDIR envvar
    • isolation: -e directory defined via --write-dir, SPRING_WRITEDIR envvar
  • priority: (none listed) — automatic scanned
    • normal: -e CONFIG_HOME, ETC_DIRS, USR_SHARE
    • portable: -e INSTALL_DIR, CONFIG_HOME, ETC_DIRS, USR_SHARE
    • isolation: ISOLATION_DIR
  • priority: low — custom user read
    • normal: -e SPRING_DATADIR envvar, SpringData configtag
    • portable: -e SPRING_DATADIR envvar, SpringData configtag
    • isolation: -e SPRING_DATADIR envvar, SpringData configtag

💖 CONFIG_HOME

Config directories in user's home. 🏡

  • *nix/MacOSX:
    • ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME-"~/.config"}/spring
    • ~/.spring
  • Windows:
    • C:/.../My Documents/My Games/Spring/
    • C:/.../My Documents/Spring/
    • C:/.../All Users/Applications/Spring/

💖 INSTALL_DIR

Location of spring binary. 📦

💖 ETC_DIRS

Additional : separated DATA DIRs defined in /etc/spring/datadir. 🗂️

💖 USR_SHARE

  • *nix/MacOSX: /usr/.../share/spring & binary dir if is Data Dir
  • MacOSX: .../Spring.app/Contents/Resources/share/games/spring/base/
  • Windows: Install directory

💖 ISOLATION_DIR

  • Mode A (--isolation): INSTALL_DIR
  • Mode B (--isolation-dir): supplied dir

⏭️ okay that's part one bestie, there's more coming, don't go anywhere 💖

💖 CONFIG FILES 💖

okay so bestie, plot twist: Spring doesn't just read one config file — it can load a whole lil squad of them and merge them together ✨. So like, super similar to how DATA DIRs work: there's one file where the engine actually writes to, and then a bunch of read-only files it just vibes with. 💅

Here's the directory scan situation — it goes hunting through these, and priority decides everything:

  • exclusive — the file you define via --config. When that's defined, ONLY that one gets loaded, no cap. Main character energy, honestly. 👑
  • high — the write DATA DIR 💾
  • (middle vibes, no fancy label) — these ones:
    • -e — skipped in Isolated mode, just so you know 🫶
    • *nix/MacOSX: ~/.springrc
    • Windows: C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\springsettings.cfg
  • low — literally all the read DATA DIRs 🌈
The one with the highest priority is the one that gets used for writing. So if you're wondering "where did my setting go bestie" — that's the answer. 🙈

And the filenames of these config files can be any of these, again in priority order:

  • high — springsettings-%Engine_Version%.cfg
  • springsettings.cfg
  • springrc-%Engine_Version% — *nix/MacOSX only 🍓
  • low — springrc — *nix/MacOSX only 🍓
An example for a versioned config file is springsettings-94.1.cfg. cute right? the version number is literally right there in the name, iconic. ✨

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

go read those too bestie, they're the whole friend group 🫶

🦋 HOMEPAGE 🦋

More information about Spring can be found at link: https://springrts.com — yes it's a real link, go click it, it's giving official 💅

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Spring was written by the Spring developers. 👑

This manual page was written by Marco Amadori <marco.amadori@gmail.com[1]>, for the Debian project (and may be used by others). 🫶

⭐ NOTES ⭐

  1. marco.amadori@gmail.com mailto:marco.amadori@gmail.com

okay that's the whole thing, bestie!! this page is from the Spring package, version date 11/23/2021, and it's SPRING(6) — go forth and config responsibly, no cap 💖✨🎀🦋🌸💅🫶😭🔥👑🌈⭐💀🙈🍓🧚💜

📦 where this page comes from