Everybody forgets that spin is not gravity. Once an object leaves the surface of a habitat it is no longer under acceleration. Not a problem in large habitats the speed of rotation is so small and the mass large,m that this problem is barely noticeable. However not nonexistent. If one had wings one could fly because there is no gravity.

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. Most of the water purification can be done centrifugally. The solids will separate out in a few hundred meters leaving water. The water can be sterilized by going through UV transparent pipes on the surface the flow into lakes flash steamed by solar concentrators. The steam goes into condensers outputting clean, sterile water flowing into water storage pipes.

Now to my point! All this moving water can control speed, gyroscopically steer, even stop and reverse spin of a habitat. All done with gear that has to be there anyway. This is what I mean by use physics to solve your problems, not machines.

High Frontier is currently still more simulation than game.  As a game, it should improve substantially once we add "career mode" (currently at version 0.25 on the road map, though that could change).

But we're at the stage now where we need to be thinking very carefully about the design of High Frontier as a game.  One thing we've come to realize is that it provides too many choices at many points in the game.  This is great for an advanced player, but quite overwhelming for new players.  Too many choices leads to decision paralysis, postponement, and regret.

So, we're currently working out ways to limit the reduce the number of choices, especially when you are new to the game.  You can read more about it over in this thread on the Unity game design forum, which is a great place inhabited by a lot of cool froods who really know where their towels are.

And of course, if you have any suggestions or questions about game design in High Frontier, post 'em here!  We'd love to hear what you have to say.

Or at least, they have a "road map" for how to resume such work:

 My novel is SciFi and takes place far away in time and space. It is an action adventure story on a philosophical base. I postulate a people that evolved with less inherent violence than humans. The story starts with an explore ship in orbit round a near by brown dwarf for a routine survey when a station is seen floating in the surface of the dwarf. A tractor beam pulls them into the station. The station A.I. decides that they are worth talking to. Then thing start to get interesting.

Hi, I'm just checking this place out. Joe dropped a post in another science forum he runs and mentioned this place.

I have an overall interest in general science and engineering topics; I work in software as well.
Hope to read and maybe post in some threads here.

Long time member of Talk-Polywell. I am very interested in space colonization. So I am looking forward to participating here.
Thanks!

I am a semi disabled sailor. Rough seas and arthleftus (left hip) don't mix. I am not a gamer, i am here looking for ideas on space colonization. My biggest complaint about many colony ideas I have read is too complicated and failure to take advantage of physics  to reduce the amount of machines needed.    Working on my second novel in a series.

We discovered a bug that affected the display of zones in city mode on Windows.  When you have Zone selected in the Manage palette, it should look something like this:

Classically, space settlement design studies have always focused on cislunar orbits — essentially the same orbits already available in High Frontier:

• Low Earth Orbit (LEO): deep within the Earth's magnetosphere, and so requires very little shielding; and very quick access to Earth materials & tourists.
• High Earth Orbit (HEO): includes geosynchronous orbit; these are quite stable, useful for satellite maintenance, and possibly as a transportation hub.
• Earth-Moon L4/L5: these are the "classic" space settlement orbits, relatively easy to access from both Earth and Moon.
• Earth-Moon L1: always between the Earth and the Moon, a useful transportation node for things traveling between the two.
• Low Lunar Orbit (LLO): this is one of the few lunar orbits that are relatively stable; cheap materials from the Moon, and great for hosting lunar tourists, scientists, remote surface workers, etc.
  

(from Sea and Sky's Solar System Tour)

Each of these worlds has its own local environment, including different moons, magnetosphere, sunlight, and location relative to everything else.

What do you think are some of the more interesting orbits for building space colonies here?