Dune Awakening Beginner Guide for the First Hours

In your first hours in Dune Awakening, stay in the shade, drink dew and purified blood, and craft an Improvised Cutteray from 2 Salvaged Metal. Claim a small base in Hagga Basin with a Sub-Fief Console, add a Fabricator, generator and refinery, then build a Sandbike from copper. Windtraps, schools and the Deep Desert come next.

What to do first in Dune Awakening

You start in Hagga Basin, the persistent starter map where you'll spend most of the early and mid game. Since patch 1.3.20 the whole of Hagga Basin is PvE, shipwrecks included, so the dangers in the first hours are the sun, thirst, NPC camps and sandworms, not other players.

Three rules keep you alive:

• Rock, not sand. Walking, running and especially driving on open sand makes vibrations that call a sandworm. A worm kills you and takes your gear. Move from rock to rock and cross dunes in short dashes. More in the sandworm guide.
• Shade, not sun. In daylight a sun-exposure meter fills while you stand in direct light. Once it's full, your hydration drains much faster. Any shadow resets it: a mesa, a cliff, even rubble. Night is the best time for long trips: there is no sun to fight, only thirst.
• Beacons before long trips. A Respawn Beacon costs 20 Salvaged Metal at the Fabricator. Drop one before you cross a big stretch of sand so a death doesn't send you back across the map.

How to survive heat and thirst

Hydration is the stat that kills new players. Your early water sources, from easiest to best:

1. Dew. At dawn, Primrose fields carry dew you can harvest with a Dew Reaper into a literjon. Primrose grows all over Hagga Basin, so you're never far from a field; be there at sunrise, because the dew is only there in the early hours. Our map can show the densest areas: best primrose fields.
2. Blood. The Improvised Blood Extractor (20 Salvaged Metal) draws blood from corpses into a Small Blood Sack (25 Plant Fiber + 5 Salvaged Metal). You can drink it in an emergency, but it lowers your max health. Pour it into a Blood Purifier at your base instead (70 Salvaged Metal), which turns it into clean water.
3. Stillsuit. The Scavenger Stillsuit set is cheap: the body costs 3 Micro-sandwich Fabric and 8 Plant Fiber, and the mask, gloves and boots cost 1 fabric and 3 fiber each. Wear the full set as early as you can; better suits follow at each metal tier.

The full water route, from dew to deathstills and windtraps, is in how to get water.

First tools to craft

Everything early is made at the Fabricator, from Salvaged Metal and a little copper. Salvaged Metal comes from wrecks and scrap piles. The Ironworks camps have the most of it nearby; see where to find salvaged metal.

Each Cutteray tier opens the next ore. Mk1 cuts iron, Mk2 cuts carbon, Mk3 cuts aluminum, Mk4 cuts jasmium and Mk5 cuts titanium and stravidium. That ladder is your whole progression.

How to build your first base

A base starts with a Sub-Fief Console (25 Salvaged Metal), which claims the land and lets you build there. Keep the first one small and on rock, close to copper, scrap and water. Our best base locations article compares the spots, and you can move your base later without losing it.

A working starter base needs:

• Fabricator: 75 Salvaged Metal.
• Fuel-Powered Generator: 45 Salvaged Metal. It produces 75 power and burns Fuel Cells.
• Small Ore Refinery: 90 Salvaged Metal. It turns copper, iron and carbon into ingots.
• Blood Purifier: 70 Salvaged Metal, for water.
• Water Cistern: 25 Copper Ingots. It stores 5,000 ml.

Copper is your first refined metal: 4 Copper Ore make 1 Copper Ingot at the Small Ore Refinery, with no water cost. Iron follows at 5 ore per ingot. The Northwest Ironworks is the richest early farming spot, with the most iron, copper and salvaged metal nearby:

If you'd rather start from a ready layout, try the base generator.

When to build your first windtrap

The Windtrap is the first machine that makes water on its own, but it's not a day-one build. It costs 90 Steel Ingots, 30 Silicone Blocks and 20 Calibrated Servoks, draws 75 power (one fuel generator's worth) and needs filters. The cheapest, the Makeshift Filter, costs 3 Steel Ingots and 5 Plant Fiber at the Survival Fabricator.

So the order is: copper, then iron, then steel (iron ingots plus carbon), then the windtrap. Calibrated Servoks drop from enemy outposts such as Khidr's Shadow: see where to find Calibrated Servok.

How to get your first vehicle

Your first vehicle is the Sandbike, and it's all copper-tier. You need a Chassis, Hull, Engine, PSU and three Treads, all made at a Fabricator or Vehicles Fabricator. The Mk1 set costs 43 Copper Ingots, 13 Advanced Servoks and 6 Particle Capacitors. Servoks and capacitors come mostly from Imperial Testing Stations.

Craft a Welding Torch Mk1, place the chassis with it and attach the rest. The bike runs on Vehicle Fuel Cells: a Small Vehicle Fuel Cell is 25 Fuel Cells at the Small Chemical Refinery (where to find fuel cells). A Vehicle Backup Tool (6 Copper Ingots + 2 Particle Capacitors) packs the bike into your inventory, and it can recover a destroyed vehicle for a cost.

Details for every vehicle are in the vehicles guide, and the jump to flying is in how to get an ornithopter.

Which school should you pick?

There are five schools: Trooper, Swordmaster, Bene Gesserit, Mentat and Planetologist. The mentor you pick at character creation only sets your starting tree. You can train with the other trainers later, so this choice isn't permanent.

• Mentat is a strong solo start: The Sentinel and the Hunter-Seeker clear camps for you.
• Bene Gesserit gives Bindu Sprint, the best early movement skill, and Voice control.
• Trooper has the Shigawire Claw for traversal plus grenades.
• Swordmaster is pure melee, with parries and charges.
• Planetologist focuses on gathering, vehicles and tools, and has the Suspensor Pad.

All five trainers are in Hagga Basin. Here's where to find them:

Ghavouri is at Griffin's Reach Tradepost, Arno at Pinnacle Station, Sister Mesa by Helius Gate, Samin Moro at Riftwatch and the Planetologist trainer at Chinara's Camp. The full breakdown is in classes and trainers. You can plan a build in our skill planner.

What to do next

Once you have water, steel and a bike, the game opens up:

• Metals. Aluminum, then duraluminum, then plastanium. The exact recipes are in our refining guide, and the crafting calculator totals what a build really costs.
• Spice. Small spice fields appear in Hagga Basin. Start with how to farm spice.
• Money. The Landsraad and contracts pay well: see how to make Solari and Landsraad and houses.
• Endgame. An ornithopter takes you to the Deep Desert, the only source of titanium and stravidium. Its layout changes every week with the Coriolis storm.

Keep our interactive map open: it shows every ore, crate and camp, so you always know where to go next.