Dune: Awakening is testing out a fix for ornithopter griefing and making an unforgivable change to flour sand farming
A new patch is headed for Dune: Awakening in August, but Funcom is testing it out right on the public test client. There's a lotta stuff crammed into version 1.1.20, including an attempt to fix the ever-present problem of ornithopter griefing, a quality of life fix all you bloodsuckers will enjoy, and one particularly scandalous change that will absolutely piss everyone off. Let's dive in!
Colliding ornithopters will now get knocked back to separate them.
I'm guessing that'll help a lot with the griefing strategy in PvE areas, where someone lands a 'thopter on the open sand to harvest spice, and then someone lands on top of their 'thopter with their own 'thopter, pinning them down until a worm comes along and eats them. It's a jerk move, so hopefully if someone tries it with the new patch they'll just bounce off?
Apparently, it's also an issue when groups of scout 'thopters swarm carrier 'thopters, which I haven't personally witnessed myself. Speaking of which, if you join the test server you'll be given a free scout 'thopter, assault 'thopter, and carrier 'thopter to help test out how effective this new change is.
I have grown weary of typing 'thopter so let's move onto a change that every single Dune player will be unhappy with:
Redistributed Flour Sand and Spice Sand fields in Hagga Basin to allow the worm to reach them.
C'mon, Funcom. Spice, OK, I get it, that should always be dangerous to farm. Put all spice in the path of the worm, absolutely.
But we've had those sweet little patches of flour sand near the rocks that you could farm without the worms being able to reach you since the game launched. You can't take them away now! Farming flour is a boring little nothing of a task: buzz over in a chopper, pick up a thousand or so units without having to worry about worm sign, and then haul it away to make the frankly obscene amount of silicon blocks needed for crafting.
But adding danger to boring doesn't equal exciting. It just makes boring take a lot longer. Leave our boring task alone! We like it this way!
Added Deposit All Blood and Deposit/Extract All Water buttons to blood purifiers and water cisterns.
That's a really nice fix! It's annoying to have to hammer the button to deposit or withdraw a few glugs of blood and water at a time. But doesn't make up for moving flour sand into the path of the worm.
You can now search for items by name in the exchange, and the categories have been re-organized to make browsing for items more convenient and intuitive.
Cool cool cool. But back to flour sand.
Look, all you developers at Funcom, you probably go make yourself a coffee or a tea or get some water from the breakroom at some point during the day, right? It's not exciting, but it needs to be done.
Do I come to Funcom and move all your drinks onto the train tracks so while you're dunking teabags you have to run away to safety every few dunks? No! So leave us our tiny little safe patches of flour sand, you monsters.
Here are the rest of the notes for the patch, which is now live on the public test client. Funcom aims to bring the patch to the main game on August 12.