How To Contribute

First steps: you'll only have to do these once, but be sure to do them exactly.

1. Make a GitHub account: https://github.com/join
2. Go to https://github.com/Persistent-SS13/Persistent-Bay and click the Fork button in the upper right. This creates your own personal copy of the code.
3. Download and install GitHub Desktop: https://desktop.github.com/ , then sign in with the account you just made.
4. On the Configure Git page, click Continue - the defaults are fine. Finish the setup.
5. Click Clone A Repository and select your copy of Persistence (e.g. rhicora/Persistent-Bay). Await the download!
6. Now you can open up File Explorer and see your copy of Persistence, most likely at C:\Users\Admin\Documents\GitHub\Persistent-Bay

Congrats! You're all set up to contribute!

How to make a change:

1. In GitHub Desktop, click the Repository menu and click Pull to get the latest Persistence.
2. In that same menu, click New Branch to create a branch - a group of changes you're planning to make.
3. Name it something easily understandable, like give-clown-extra-bikehorn.
4. Open the files you want to edit in some form of editor; it's up to you! Dream Maker itself works (double click persistentss13.dme), but we also recommend Atom or Sublime Text.
5. Type the changes you want. Supply crates are a great starting point, they're located in https://github.com/Persistent-SS13/Persistent-Bay/tree/dev/code/datums/supplypacks
6. Save your work (CTRL-S). Now that you have set /obj/item/weapon/bikehorn = 2 in the clown's supply pack (operations.dm), the clown will get two bikehorns per crate. Time to commit our changes!
7. In the lower left corner of GitHub Desktop, write a short message describing the individual change. Click the button that says Commit To...
8. Click the Publish To GitHub button on the top bar to push your changes.
9. Click https://github.com/Persistent-SS13/Persistent-Bay/compare/dev...rhicora:give-clown-extra-bikehorn (an example form for creating a Pull Request), but you should instead choose your fork as Head Fork and your new branch as its branch.
10. Click the big green button to propose the code change!

Don't worry, it gets much faster after you do it a few times. If you get stuck, just ping @Contributors in #code-discussion. We're happy to help you through.