Where do you want me?

[m_k]

First of all excuse my english, it is not my first language and has indeed gotten a bit rusty, because I was in "read-only mode" nearly all the time since school two years ago. Since I found no introductory thread, only threads where people made their own, because they were also unable to find one, I thought I'd do the same.

I've stumbled across FreeOrion several weeks ago, tried it out and immediately liked it, the graphics are astonishing, some of the gameplay concepts I've seen are better than those of comparable games (at least those I have played, the MoOs, GalCiv, and some others I can't remember) and so on. The only downside are all those aspects that are still missing, like for example the AI, so I thought I might try helping to change this. As a student I have much more practice in all the theory behind it than in the real programing, so I thought I might try to change this by doing some actual work. (It is not that I can't program, I just never did it regulary.)

This is the first open source project I'm trying to take part in, so I thought I'd better ask before doing anything thoughtless. Where do you want me to offer my help, what do I need to know before I start working, with what shouldn't I interfere and whom should I ask such questions in the future?

[eleazar]

Welcome Your english communicates well.

There's a good deal of introductory information on the wiki
But especially note this page of programming work. I don't see AI on that list, but that's also a need.

Personally i'd recommend that you first try something relatively small that you find interesting. IIRC svn access is usually granted after a few successful patches have been committed.

Feel free to ask follow-up questions in this thread, or in another that's relevant. I probably can't answer specific questions, i'm not a coder. Geoff the Medio, or Tzlaine will have the most authoritative knowledge of that stuff.

[The Silent One]

Welcome M_k!

I don't see AI on that list, but that's also a need.

Actually "write initial python AI" is in there. If you'd like to work on that, m_k, please talk to me so we can coordinate our efforts.

Personally i'd recommend that you first try something relatively small that you find interesting.

Very much agree. Look for something you find fun to implement. There's a couple of interesting requests on the freeorion sourceforge page, e.g. "randomly flip nebulae" or "attention grabber" and more request worth implementing.

[Geoff the Medio]

Where do you want me to offer my help

As noted by previous posters, there's a list of tasks on the Programming Work page and sourceforge feature requests. But more importantly, you should find a coding (or other) task that you're personally motivated to work on.

...what do I need to know before I start working...

Essentials are a decent grasp of C++ or (for AI) Python, and how to check out the source and get it compiled and running on your system. The rest you can probably pick up as you go, and willingness to learn the existing FreeOrion codebase and new programming tools and methods is sufficient.

with what shouldn't I interfere

Please don't vanalize the wiki or spam the forums. Other than that, there's not really much you can interfere with... (at least without SVN access).