Where are those darn stations?

[Stromboli]

While the long waiting times from the witchspace portals and the planets have been a tough pill to swallow for a newbie like me, the biggest problem so far is the difficulty I've had finding the space stations. I'll go around he planet in loops without seeing the thing. Is there some sort of protocol as to there location, where they can be found each time, and are they present at every planet?

[Thargoid]

Greetings,

With basic hardware, fly towards the planet (either directly along the shipping corridor or not, as you see fit) with it centred in your compass. Once you get close enough the compass with change (the shape goes to a hollow circle iirc, or something similar) and lock onto the station, then just follow it in.

Once you have the advanced compass then the "N" setting will lock you onto the navigation buoy (usually, occasionally it seems to vanish), which is just in front of the station.

Or at least that's how every ship I've taken on covert raids into human space does it...

[Cmdr. Maegil]

Indeed, they're close to the planet, but I suspect you haven't ever even opened the ship's glove compartment to check the user's manual and find out about what your HUD is showing, did you?
Oh, well... Since you're at it, also read the what is suggested here - just to pre-empt (among others) your docking problems...

[TGHC]

You need to buy the advanced space compass you can toggle through the options using the tilde key (UK keyboard) it's used a lot in OXP's for locating important objects.

[Eric Walch]

While the long waiting times from the witchspace portals and the planets have been a tough pill to swallow for a newbie like me, the biggest problem so far is the difficulty I've had finding the space stations.

Hello Stromboli,

The station is always visible from the entry point. Some times in front of the planet but most of the times a little aside when looked upon from the system entry point. When you take your time you often can see it already as a very small dot.