This is an offshoot of #6640

steps

sbt --sbt-version 0.13.18 sbtVersion

problem

sbt runner script fails to resolve sbt launcher 0.13.18 from Maven Central.

expectation

The intent of the user was to override the sbt version using --sbt-version.

note

sbt -Dsbt.version=0.13.18 sbtVersion

would work.

Currently --sbt-version option is tied to the sbt launcher version, so what you're seeing is failure for the runner script (sbt the Bash script) to download sbt-launch-0.13.18.jar since it never existed on Maven Central.

Originally posted by @eed3si9n in #6640 (comment)