All of the 30-meter ranged companions I have across all my toons will put me into combat if I send them in to attack at a range greater than 30 meters, but then just stand there with nothing happening.

I've tested it different ways, and I successfully sent the personal warbot to attack at a distance of 40 meters and behaved as we'd expect, firing off a round and actually engaging the mob, including closing the distance between them. The warbot uses a cannon.

Also, I couldn't outrun him. He stayed right there with me (within a couple yards). Usually you can run circles around your companion and they're way the hell back there, even running toward you when you do a 180 because the comp hasn't finished pathing to do you from when you were travelling away from them.

All testing was done in the Taris Reclamation Base heroic instance on Taris.

He's at influence 20.

Edit: The most he'd stretch behind me without keeping up while I ran around on fleet is about 10 yards, which is still a heck of a lot better than most of them.