i have a bad habit of forgetting to recover my drones before warping home. yes, the “reconnect with my drones” would work IF i could find the right location again! but since it was an event site, the beacon moved…
any advice on what to do again? could i somehow use the map to locate my lost drones?
If you have a ship that can be fit with combat probes you can scan them down (other forgotten items, like MTUs, mobile depots, etc. as well).
However, this goes for ANY forgotten items like this, so somebody might beat you to them (or you might find some things that others have left behind).
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If you have an unfortunate habit of forgetting your drones in mission or event sites, make a habit of bookmarking the site when you first arrive, or at least bookmarking the last room of the site. If you warp off having left those poor drones behind, just warp back to your bookmark… or better yet, make yourself an end-of-mission checklist that includes, in large, bold letters, “have I recalled my drones?”
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Essentially this.
They’re easy enough to probe down if you forget them, and if it’s a popular missioning system you might actually find some extra freebies too.
Depending on what you find, you can make a little extra ISK finding them. It’s what I do.
Establish a habit. I set my keyboard shortcuts for ctrl-d to recall drones, ctrl-r to reload. ctrl-d-r, warp. I never warp off an empty grid without hitting ctrl-d-r first. Make it a habit and it’ll become difficult to accidentally leave drones behind.
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keybind to side button on your mouse
I agree 100%. I use a lot of drone missile ships so my habit is:
shift-r to recall drones
ctrl-r to reload missiles
Warp out.
This is muscle-memory now.
Also getting a ship fit with expanded launcher and combat probes is a good idea. Learning how to combat scan is a valuable skill on its own. You will likely find other lost drones to make a little ISK.
I remember following after RvB fights and cleaning up the left behind drones. Probably better uses for my time, but it felt naughty 
–Sweeper Gadget
The problem might be how difficult you make it for yourself. You can put drones in groups and drag them into space to deploy them, and drag the active ones onto your drone bay category to get them back.
Indeed, hotkeys are huge helps here along with grouping and good screen layout.
I also heartily second the suggestion to map hotkeys to a gaming mouse, if you have one. I have a button for launching default group, drone engage (fight or mine depending on what is in space), and recall drones.
Really handy for building muscle memory and general gameplay. I use a Logitech G602 and it was a great (and relatively inexpensive) addition. Handy for mapping other things for other apps (like copy/paste, mark unread/read, etc.) for other non-game apps too!
“But men are men; the best sometimes forget.”
-Wm. Shakespeare
Same can be done with incursion sites:
Combat scanner. Not only does it help you recover drones. But also gives you some practice which will make you faster. And you can even make a little side isk.
Back when I ran incursions I would always have a combat probe alt with me. I’d spend the time waiting for form up just hitting the systems. Made a tiny profit from recovering augmented drones and selling them back to the community.
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Simple: Bookmark the site when you enter it.
Problem solved.
And if you’re cleaning up the sites in a Noctis, this’ll already be a given.
–Sweeper Gadget
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we need a switch you can turn on or off
when you turn on this switch (option) and you go to warp out of a site it will auto recall your drones.
Pros you wont forget your drones.
Cons increased ship deaths which will be a pro and a con. a con for the guy wanting to warp, a pro for a pvp that just warped in to a low/null/wh site and how has a pve guy stuck waiting on his drones and panicing.
i had the same problem.
i added my drone to all my overviwe tab so i always see 5 additionnale green line on my overview when i click warp to that place.
It helped me to bring back my drone until i fully assimilate the habit of doing so.
my 2 cents
OP, you’re not the Lone Ranger. I’ve found roughly 2B in drones over the past 12 months, including a dozen Geckos. I’ll never, and I mean never, have to buy a drone again. From T1 to Augmented, they’re everywhere.
I could give a lot of tips on how to make this work, but intuiting it out is the best teacher.
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