You still didnt say exactly what ship you are flying.
But like you mentioned, ships like the squid can outrun but even that ship cannot survive escaping, its just quicker at getting cover.
Even in, movies i guess, diving down doesnt help much. The Chaser always shoots down at the enemy, the prey just has to get low where all the cover is.
And trust me again, USE low altitude, and use that low altitude to get a suprise on high altitude.
Your example on paritian does not help much because you dont say if you are in the open or getting into cover. You keep saying you "Dive down" to street level. Thats not going to help, you are just going down. And they arent going to follow you. Cause they can shoot. When you are in Low altitude it is much more difficult for high altitude to see you while you can see the easy to see guys on high altitude giving you a tactical advantage of getting the drop(Lift?) on them.
When they realise this they themselves will go into hiding by going down.
Your only tools of direct intention of escaping is the TAR and the Mine Launcher. The TAR always goes behind the ship, but forward isnt faster than backwards. Back peddling for half the ships is a means of escaping + fending off the enemy with whatever weapons.
A pyramidion running away showing his backside, isnt going to work well. Flying backwards with view on an enemy that chases you can actualy land you the kill.
Flying backwards with a junker gives you atleast 1 gun to defend yourself with along with protecting your engines from the enemy that is chasing in the front.
Jump on a spire, and you will never think to Turn around and fly away. Because flying backwards, works just as well and better.
Taking cover in the other hand is much better. Have cover, and you are safe. Or for close range situations, you get a small breathing time. And at cover you can make a comeback. And the place where cover resides is at low altitudes. If you take cover behind somewhere high altitude can shoot down at you, then its not a good cover. Then it is just equal altitude cover (Or ships that are at the same altitude of that cover only).
If you would fly around a cover being chased from high altitude to where you are at low. And you are still getting hit. It wouldnt matter if you were on his altitude also, because he manages to get a horizontal line of sight constantly. No matter what altitude, you cannot escape someone that manages to keep a horizontal speed and line of sight up with you. Go underneath them, then all of a sudden they will have to go down, or fly away to get the gun arcs on you. If you notice this, like i said. If HE goes down, you go UP. If he flies away. You fly away. Giving you that extra momentum of advantage when it comes to escaping or getting the upper hand.