"I have a kind of theory about the consequences of drift in an orbit fight.
When two ships orbit each other, if the more agile ship can attain a certain critical angular velocity advantage, the drifty ship will transition from moving in an orbit to essentially spinning in place. (Assuming that the heavy pilot doesn't realize what's going on, that is.) This happens because to keep the light ship in his sights the heavy pilot will have to point his nose at an ever-steeper angle to the line between his ship and the barycenter, but will drift while he's doing that such that he'll wind up killing off all his tangential velocity without noticing it. He'll no longer be orbiting and aiming in, but spinning and aiming out.
Not only that, but what can happen is that when the situation stabilizes, with the agile ship orbiting the now-stationary, spinning heavy ship, the lighter ship's angular velocity can be higher than the heavier ship's maximum rotation rate, leaving the heavier ship a helpless target.
Imagine a Cutlass and a Scout facing each other and orbiting a virtual barycenter. If the Scout hits the ab and maintains radius by carving, its angular velocity will greatly increase. The effect will be that it moves along the circle it was describing before, such that the two ships are no longer facing each other and the Scout is catching up to the Cutlass, like a minute hand to the Cutlass' hour hand. The Cutlass will naturally rotate to attempt to track the Scout. But there will come a tipping point where the Cutlass' rotation will force an orbit inversion.
This is one of the great advantages of the Scout - it can do this even to a Sabre (although the final, static orbit in that case is extremely tight - you're locked about 20 feet from the Sabre). In a Scout, the limiting factor for radial acceleration is actually the pilot. With boost/ab the Scout has pretty much zero drift, meaning it can gain an angular velocity advantage over almost any other ship. Possibly any other ship.
This kind of orbital inversion is a primary weakness of heavy ships like the Vanguard and Constellation, and I think is among the main reasons they're so easy to kill. The flip side is that if the heavy pilot is aware of the danger he can prevent this situation from arising. The red flag is if, during an orbit fight, the lighter target starts slipping around the circle toward you."
Written by: Kodo, 42 Underdogs, 5/9/16
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Star Citizen is diffidently not your Daddy's Wing Commander nor Star Trek Online.