Dropped connections are a fact of life in EvE. They are almost always a bad thing to some extent. You might lose a conversation you were having, you might lose track of a transaction or an industrial task you were doing, even if you are docked up you can lose stuff you were doing.

In PvP it can be an absolute nightmare. You lose your fleet, you e-warp off and your return warp can bounce you off gates, stations, what have you, and if you aren’t VERY careful losing a ship is far, far easier because any hostile eyes certainly saw you leave. Fortunately there’s a few simple things you can do to save your butt if you disco.

Know where you were. If you notice the system is unresponsive look in the top-left corner and figure it out. Speak up on voice comms. You can do these simultaneously if you didn’t lose your connection entirely. Your FC needs to know who disconnected and what they were in, just in case everyone else fucked up and didn’t see someone just warp off. DON’T LOG IN! Seriously, put in your password, get to the screen but DO NOT click your character portrait. Report everything that was going on when you left. Wait patiently. The fleet might come back for you or they might be busy. Have a backup plan. Write down where you were. Go away for a couple hours, come back and have a corpmate or your own alt scout you out.

Fleet commanders also need to be conscious of the possibility and plan for it. FC himself should know who’s in his fleet. He should have lead and trail scouts (who aren’t the FC) Lead scout looks for fights, trail is lagging behind the fleet. He should be close enough to see if someone is e-warping instead of jumping through a gate, and should stay in the previous system for long enough to see anyone coming in. If possible there should be multiple trail scouts with one being a neutral WELL behind the gang to watch for someone shadowing at a distance. Logistics should see friendlies on overview to see if someone changes color and warps off. Have a plan to deal with discos, and make sure people know if they can expect an immediate rescue or if they should plan their own rescue later.

Simple rules are best. There’s nothing here that isn’t pretty straightforward. It does require people to pay attention to themselves and to be aware which can be hard in longer, drunker roams. Avoiding stupid losses is one of the biggest factors that separates good pilots from great pilots. Logging in after a disco into an unknown situation will get you killed way more than it will get you out. Be smart. Don’t do it. Trust me on this.