Sry for the inconvenience - but if you build your vessel "upside down" (accidentally), changing the core won't change the orientation.The FIRST placement of the starter block determines the up/down and front/back for the ship. That's why we added a cockpit-seat to the CV starter block at the "front" - as these directions can not be seen/displayed in the game ... and "remembering" the direction.. thats something one can easily forget about.

Sry for the inconvenience, but as i said, that's an inherent part of the game engine and can't be changed that easily.That's why all the CV starters have a cockpit on the front-up side (since a few updates back in pre-alpha)