Still the wrong hologram... that can't be intentional.

[furrycat]

The "station faces planet" myth is one of the most-repeated incorrect statements about this game.

It's particularly annoying because it's so easy to test.

You don't need to know any complicated formulae, have split-second reflexes, spend hours obtaining particular materials or millions of credits on outfitting. All you need to do is look out of the cockpit window.

If, hypothetically, the station "always" faces the planet it's orbiting, then when you undock and pass through the slot you too must be facing the planet.

The next few times you undock from different starports, look out the window when you pass through the slot and see how often there's a planet in front of you. Remember, people on the internet say it will happen every time.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Yeah, it kinda faces the planet but only within a cone of 90 degrees or so. If the orbital radius is large, it can appear to be pointing away.

Someone once said that the rotation axis points to a spot somewhere over the planet's pole, which seems to be true for most of them unless the planet is huge and the station orbits very close, then it almost seems to point to somewhere near the pole but inside the planet. Maybe it's just an arbitrary 45 degrees away from the orbital plane.

But it's true that if you want to align with the slot straight from supercruise, you have to pass the planet before you get to the station unless the station is in a very high orbit and you can curve in.

 

[Crank Larson]

Ah, looks like I'm not the 1st to spot this very odd design choice

It has been commented on before, yes. It has also been responded to by FD that the hologram orientation is correct.

It actually works very well in VR. The problem is that without VR, you lose some perspective, and your mind needs to compensate for this.

 

[Jukelo]

The "station faces planet" myth is one of the most-repeated incorrect statements about this game.

It's particularly annoying because it's so easy to test.

You don't need to know any complicated formulae, have split-second reflexes, spend hours obtaining particular materials or millions of credits on outfitting. All you need to do is look out of the cockpit window.

If, hypothetically, the station "always" faces the planet it's orbiting, then when you undock and pass through the slot you too must be facing the planet.

The next few times you undock from different starports, look out the window when you pass through the slot and see how often there's a planet in front of you. Remember, people on the internet say it will happen every time.

As you press the undock button at a station and the docking clamps are released, before you do anything else target the planet your station is orbitting and check your nav ball. It is a near guarantee* it will be moving along the edge of a 45° cone in the forward hemisphere (as the station is rotating along its longitudinal axis).
This means that although the stations are not strictly speaking facing the planet, it is still roughly true. Assuming the station "faces" the planet and therefore approaching it from that direction guarantees you'll drop down to normal space along the edges of that same cone (making locating the mailslot trivial even if you don't know about the arrows). And even though in reality most stations are too close to the planet to make this practical, approaching the station using the route highlighted by the red arrow in my previous post guarantees you'll drop either right in front of the mail slot, or at worst 90° off (which is still better than the 0-135° range possible if you approach from whichever random direction that isn't blocked off by the planet).

* in three years of playing I have found exactly one station which doesn't obey this rule (its mailslot points directly away from the orbital plane).