Why does Dres get barely any attention?

[Dcseal]

I'm just wondering. The poor little guy never gets any attention. There has to be some big science jackpots, right? Or is there another reason?

[cratercracker]

Dunno. 

Dres is you know, is Dres, it is just a normal dwarf planet!

[Lelitu]

Dres doesn't offer enough of a science bonus to make it worthwhile with the amount of hassle it takes to get there.

It's highly inclined, which makes transfers very expensive, except on the rare occasions they line up with Ascending/Descending nodes. Unfortunately, its orbital period is close enough to Kerbin's that transfer windows are even rarer than Duna, Good ones worse than that.

Basically, Moho, but even more time consuming, and boring. At least Moho has the Mohole.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Lelitu

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

I kinda like going to Dres, just because it's a challenge to get there. It's highly inclined, as @Lelitu mentioned, and it's difficult to get an encounter with because of it's low gravity and relatively small SOI. I consider it to be the 2nd toughest planet; Moho being first. Duna and Eve are easy (to get to; no one would ever say Eve is easy to land on or take off from). Eeloo is just a long burn. You can go to Jool without a maneuver node (and capture for free). Dres is different. You have to make the inclination change (or try to time it at the node), play with the mouse wheel for a while to get an encounter, and then, when you do get there, Dres gives you no help at all. There's no gravity assist to be had. The planet itself barely tugs on your ship. Your only move is to get low, hit the brakes, and hope you brought enough fuel.

On the plus side, it's kind of cool. It's such a tiny little planet, with nothing else around. I kind of like it. And everybody should see the Great Canyon. One of my Kerbals fell better than a third of the way to bottom and survived. It was pretty crazy.

And if you do dig Dres, why not show it some love? Check out the link below. The Dres fan club may be small, but their loyalty is unquestioned.

 

[Vanamonde]

I don't dislike Dres, but it is a little harder to get to and a little less rewarding when you do. For one thing, it's small and doesn't have an atmosphere, which means it requires a large burn to enter orbit without the assistance of aerobraking. It's also kind of a small target. And it's less scenic than most of the other worlds because it doesn't have a moon.

[cratercracker]

I think Dres needs a few asteroid moons, like Gilly! (not those orbiting asteroids) And it will be more rewarding.

Like for example one moon orbits in a low circular orbit, and other is in very elliptical orbit.

[swjr-swis]

I like Dres. It's nice and quiet, away from main inter-planetary traffic lanes, it has its own infinite supply of orbital asteroids to play with, reasonable gravity... perfect place for an evil lair a base of operations.

[NSEP]

I never went to Dres, but it i would love to go there! I like the idea of an empty clean and free planet, easy to colonize and nothing in the way. The Inclined orbit for example is not ideal, but i would love to go there.

[Overfloater]

2 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

I like Dres. It's nice and quiet, away from main inter-planetary traffic lanes, it has its own infinite supply of orbital asteroids to play with, reasonable gravity... perfect place for an evil lair a base of operations.

...it's also noted for the fascinating butt crack of Dres.

 

(Similar to the "face on Mars")

Edited May 7, 2017 by Overfloater

[ZeroG]

22 hours ago, Lelitu said:

Dres doesn't offer enough of a science bonus to make it worthwhile with the amount of hassle it takes to get there.

It's highly inclined, which makes transfers very expensive, except on the rare occasions they line up with Ascending/Descending nodes. Unfortunately, its orbital period is close enough to Kerbin's that transfer windows are even rarer than Duna, Good ones worse than that.

Basically, Moho, but even more time consuming, and boring. At least Moho has the Mohole.

It's true that Dres is trickier to get to than most other places in the system, but IMHO it's nothing like the scale of how hard Moho is. At least anecdotally, almost all my missions to Moho fail, whereas I've rarely had trouble with Dres. Mostly it's because while both involve an inclination change, Moho has a very extreme capture delta-V requirement when coming from Kerbin. Both are interesting I think, but I'm just saying as far as difficulty goes, Moho is in its own class.

I think if you really want to feel the love for Dres though, consider it's rough solar system counterpart Ceres, which I also feel doesn't get the attention it deserves. Did you know NASA launched the Dawn Spacecraft there? Fascinating stuff, but it certainly didn't get the attention of New Horizions (in fairness because Pluto is super-interesting on its own). Lots of cool discoveries were made on Ceres, but it seems like in KSP and real life, those mid-system dwarf planets just don't quite cross the threshold of inspiring for most people.

ADDENDUM:

Also, I really like going to Dres because it's difficult to get to without making me weep in failed attempts (see Moho)

Edited May 7, 2017 by ZeroG

[Ultimate Steve]

It's really easy to find magic boulders there. I've found 2 so far, both from Dres. The ring of asteroids makes it easy to refuel even the biggest ships you send there (Trust me, I know).

[cratercracker]

48 minutes ago, ZeroG said:

It's true that Dres is trickier to get to than most other places in the system, but IMHO it's nothing like the scale of how hard Moho is. At least anecdotally, almost all my missions to Moho fail, whereas I've rarely had trouble with Dres. Mostly it's because while both involve an inclination change, Moho has a very extreme capture delta-V requirement when coming from Kerbin. Both are interesting I think, but I'm just saying as far as difficulty goes, Moho is in its own class.

I think if you really want to feel the love for Dres though, consider it's rough solar system counterpart Ceres, which I also feel doesn't get the attention it deserves. Did you know NASA launched the Dawn Spacecraft there? Fascinating stuff, but it certainly didn't get the attention of New Horizions (in fairness because Pluto is super-interesting on its own). Lots of cool discoveries were made on Ceres, but it seems like in KSP and real life, those mid-system dwarf planets just don't quite cross the threshold of inspiring for most people.

ADDENDUM:

Also, I really like going to Dres because it's difficult to get to without making me weep in failed attempts (see Moho)

It is easy to capture in orbit around Moho. Just aerobrake (plasma brake?) at sun, that is it.

[Lelitu]

54 minutes ago, ZeroG said:

It's true that Dres is trickier to get to than most other places in the system, but IMHO it's nothing like the scale of how hard Moho is. At least anecdotally, almost all my missions to Moho fail, whereas I've rarely had trouble with Dres. Mostly it's because while both involve an inclination change, Moho has a very extreme capture delta-V requirement when coming from Kerbin. Both are interesting I think, but I'm just saying as far as difficulty goes, Moho is in its own class.

I think if you really want to feel the love for Dres though, consider it's rough solar system counterpart Ceres, which I also feel doesn't get the attention it deserves. Did you know NASA launched the Dawn Spacecraft there? Fascinating stuff, but it certainly didn't get the attention of New Horizions (in fairness because Pluto is super-interesting on its own). Lots of cool discoveries were made on Ceres, but it seems like in KSP and real life, those mid-system dwarf planets just don't quite cross the threshold of inspiring for most people.

ADDENDUM:

Also, I really like going to Dres because it's difficult to get to without making me weep in failed attempts (see Moho)

TBH, I find Moho a lot easier than Dres. Both require a lot of deltav, true. But Moho whips around kerbol so fast it has transfer windows about once every Moho year, which is a lot. Dres.. 4 years between windows, and 4 year flight time. Also, I find Moho's capture burns more predictable.

For an unmanned program 6kps at LKO isn't hard to achieve, so I have a whole commnet at Moho. The first probe to Dres just arrived, and was launched before I started putting probes in Moho orbit. 

[Curveball Anders]

I like Dres because it's there and it's a challenge.

[Snark]

Some humorous troll posts about Dres have been removed.

Folks, it's an honest question from a well-meaning player, let's not drag in long-running gag jokes about Dres.  Folks who want to join in that fun can just search for Dres threads and join the merriment there.

To the OP:

On 5/6/2017 at 11:23 AM, Dcseal said:

I'm just wondering. The poor little guy never gets any attention. There has to be some big science jackpots, right? Or is there another reason?

As folks here have mentioned, it's not especially hard to get to... but it is somewhat inconvenient (inclined orbit, infrequent launch windows, long travel time), and many (perhaps most) players find it uninteresting (no satellite; no atmosphere; pretty close physical match to the Mun, which everyone has already explored to death).

It has a few things to spice it up a bit (see earlier comments in thread), but for a lot of players, those little add-ons don't make it interesting enough to make it worth the trouble of going there.

(And yes, some players do like it.    I'm not dissing Dres here, just saying "here's why a lot of players don't have much use for it," since that's what the OP was asking.)

[Guest]

You go to Dres because you want to. Most people apparently don't want to.

I like it. I've been to Dres far more than Laythe (only been to Laythe once, and that in a upscale solar system using a novelty AN-2).

Spoiler

 

[ProtoJeb21]

On 5/7/2017 at 0:15 AM, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

Moho being first.

Explain how it is always one of the first planets I visit in SCIENCE mode.

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

3 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Explain how it is always one of the first planets I visit in SCIENCE mode.

That may be, but I bet it wasn't the first planet you visited.

I consider it the hardest planet to get to, but that doesn't mean it's hard to get to. All the planets are easy to get to, once you start to know what you're doing.

Duna and Eve are simplicity itself (again, not saying to land or takeoff from). Jool is a breeze because it has a huge SOI and you capture for free. Eeloo just means burning longer. Dres has the funky inclination and tiny SOI, which makes it tough.

Which of those would you consider tougher than Moho?

 

Although I guess I should be more specific, in that, although I'm saying "get to", I'm really referring to the round trip, since you have to bring your Kerbals home. The return from Moho is no fun at all.

Edited May 9, 2017 by Cpt Kerbalkrunch

[Aragosnat]

Yup. My current career.. Dres will be getting a lot of attention. Maily for the simple reason. Never been there dispite 4k+ hours of playing KSP and having been around since 0.24...

[Laythe Squid]

On 5/6/2017 at 1:46 PM, cratercracker said:

Dunno. 

Dres is you know, is Dres, it is just a normal dwarf planet!

 

On 5/6/2017 at 2:15 PM, Lelitu said:

Dres doesn't offer enough of a science bonus to make it worthwhile with the amount of hassle it takes to get there.

It's highly inclined, which makes transfers very expensive, except on the rare occasions they line up with Ascending/Descending nodes. Unfortunately, its orbital period is close enough to Kerbin's that transfer windows are even rarer than Duna, Good ones worse than that.

Basically, Moho, but even more time consuming, and boring. At least Moho has the Mohole.

Consider this: The Dawn spacecraft took around 8 years to reach Ceres, and New Horizons took 9.5 years to reach Pluto.

Both worlds have highly inclined orbits, and seemed boring before we visit. They are also "just dwarf planets". When we visited them, the science payoff was huge.

[Lelitu]

11 minutes ago, Laythe Squid said:

 

Consider this: The Dawn spacecraft took around 8 years to reach Ceres, and New Horizons took 9.5 years to reach Pluto.

Both worlds have highly inclined orbits, and seemed boring before we visit. They are also "just dwarf planets". When we visited them, the science payoff was huge.

Oh, that's absolutely true in RL. Not so much in KSP with it's much more limited science system.
With Life support mods, it's also actually easier to do a kerballed mission to Moho than Duna, let alone Dres. A Kerballed mission with IRSU is much more able to really science mine effectively than any probes.
 

[GoSlash27]

On 5/6/2017 at 2:15 PM, Lelitu said:

Dres doesn't offer enough of a science bonus to make it worthwhile with the amount of hassle it takes to get there.

It's highly inclined, which makes transfers very expensive, except on the rare occasions they line up with Ascending/Descending nodes. Unfortunately, its orbital period is close enough to Kerbin's that transfer windows are even rarer than Duna, Good ones worse than that.

^All of this.

 I rarely have reason to visit more than a handful of systems in a normal career, and nearly every planet is easier and more profitable than Dres. It's inclination and eccentricity make it a poor candidate even for refueling.

I would go there more often if Squad gave me a good reason.

Best,
-Slashy

[Bubbadevlin]

I personally dont go to dres because to me, it is so similar to the Mun, and really feels like it is just a interplanetary Mun. Then again, i play sandbox, so its not like i would want to go there for sceience

[cratercracker]

Dres  has the similarity with the Mun,But Dres offers some of the best viewes in the entire Kerbol system.

Take a peak at bautiful Valleys and watch the sun fall under horizon, or find a very pleasent lowload to watch the faraway mountain chains, many more you can find by just landing on Dres.

Edited May 14, 2017 by cratercracker

[DarkOwl57]

Well I'm only using Dres in The Final Stand for one reason. No-one bothered to look there after Jeb left, and that's where he's been hiding for 50 years