Good info, thanks.
I did a little experiment myself. I shot at NPCs to make them aggressive and then I stopped my ship (Vulture) put 4 pips to shields see what happened next. I only tried it with Sidewinders, Eagles and Vipers because shields weren't strong enough to take on bigger ships. I'll try them another time in my Corvette. Anyway, after my initial hit every NPC aimed straight at me and closed in while at the same time using lateral thrusters to shift its position to within 5-10 degrees right in front of me. Then they started flying backwards until they were well out of range (>3-4 km). Some stayed there (shooting but doing no damage) but most then closed in again to less than 1 km. Sometimes they then started flying backwards again sometimes they flew past me and after turning/flipping repeated the cycle.
I learned from this experiment that they do not have a preferred range of X km. Instead they approach and retreat in cycles. However, they do fly backwards a lot and primarily use lateral thrusters to maintain position relative to their target if that target is not moving too much. I'm surprised they chose to position almost right in front of me (right in front of my weapons!). I expected them to position behind me.
Next test to see how they behave when the target starts moving again.
