idk if you saw it yet, but i figured the exact order of scan when a ship is spawned in that determines the core cockpit.
it scans in top to bottom rows, in sequence from left to right.
if two cockpits are in the same vertical row, the higher one gets priority.
so this,
will become this
even if they are slighly overlapping, the more left one still wins
this could be used to ensure the escape pod is always at the bottom, no need to build upside down. just make sure the cockpit of the pod is farther to the left than the rest of them.
if two cockpits are in the same vertical row, the higher one gets priority
so with
you get
edit
ok i think i have gone a bit overboard with the testing to narrow this down. =P