Alright, I've lost well over 200k in mercs who have simply vanished from the game. GM's have helped with some of them but I could not expect them to fix it everytime based on my word alone.
Anyway, I have 2 suggestions that would make the whole "merc disappeared while I was leaving an encounter" problem go away...
1) give the players the ability to call their own mercs back to their tent or to their exact location.
or
2a) make mercs similar to cars in the sense that when you are in an encounter with mercs they are visible to the owner.
2b) or as an alternative to 2a- make mercs similar to other players int he sense that you will still see the distress signal or location you joined as long as they are still there.
Thank you for your time.
Ghost please read this!
-Kain