The other day a new player asked in chat why probes return to your ship automatically and drones must be returned by the player. No one gave them an answer. I took them into private chat and told them as much as I do know.
- Probes cannot be collected ( scooped ) manually, Drones can.
- Combat Probes are not armed with weapons, they just scan ships positions.
- Combat Drones can attack other ships.
- Probes will instantly hop ( teleport ) back into your cargo bay when you dock or jump.
- Drones must physically move through space back to the drone bay.
They asked a very good question and had a valid point. If Drones are equipped with AI for all the operations they perform, why can’t they sense the ship is leaving and return to the ship as the Probes do? I told them I agree, it is some BS mechanics at work there, and anything else from FC will just hand you made up space mechanics to explain it.
I assume this was done on purpose to make it possible to find other player’s lost drones and sell them. Either way, I told them both are relatively cheap, when you get about a month into the game. The only time you will lose probes is having them out during reset or a disconnect.
Mine Safe 
Probes have a warp drive, drones do not.
If you warp away and then call your drones, your drones cannot follow, your probes can.
Also if you attempt to warp away you may not even want to wait for your drones to come. Whenever I warp away leaving my drones behind it’s usually because warping right now is more important than waiting for my drones to slowly return.
I can come back to my drones anyway!
There’s a bigger brother to drones, fighters. Fighters do have a warp drive, so you can warp away and later recall your fighters to you even from the other side of the system.
The biggest reason I wouldn’t want my drones to automatically return to my ship is that this takes time, and often when I warp away without my drones it is because I do not have that time.
For new players it just takes some practice to transition from a “I forgot my drones” to “I left my drones behind for now on purpose”.
Probes take time to get into position… then appears immediately in cargo hold when you recall them or jump. Fun.
They didn’t use to auto-return, and you’d forget them and then have to go back into the WH and get polarized and reconnect and recall and wait a minute and then go about your day.
Player’s made a QoL suggestion and CCP made them auto-return.
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