Dune: Awakening Guide | How To Build Bases

Struggling to build a base? Here's a guide on how to create the perfect base in Dune: Awakening.

Game Guide by TauxicPandA on Jun 10, 2025

In the harsh environment of Dune Awakening, it is not just a matter of staying away from the deadly Sandworms but also protecting yourself from rogue players who can loot resources in your bases.

This guide will walk you through everything you want to know about base building, from selecting the perfect location to designing a defensive fortress that can withstand the weather and enemies of Arrakis.

Dune Awakening Guide, How To Build Bases

Choosing the Base Location

There are two things you have to be careful of in Dune Awakening. First are the Sandworms—avoiding being eaten by them is crucial, as it will destroy all the resources you've been farming. The second one is other players who steal from abandoned bases.

For starters, you'll only need a little base, but the further you progress through the game, the more you'll want to construct a secure position protecting you from the heat, dust, lethal NPCs, wild players, and the always-present Sandworms.

This requires you to select a good spot distant from the dunes initially. This will prevent the Sandworms from devouring all your hard work.

Dune Awakening Guide, How To Build Bases, Choosing the Base Location

A relatively flat plateau makes base building easy in Dune: Awakening. Since you'll need many resources for building and maintaining your base, it's good to remember what resources are nearby. Granite and a constant water supply are a must.

Scrap Metal is nice to have if you want to decorate your base. Having Ores close by will also make your crafting process so much easier, whether that's just Copper or if you're transitioning into other regions where there's Iron or Cobalt.

If you are close to a Lab, it's better for you as this means you'll get frequent access to unique Schematics. These Schematics can be used to craft one distinctive item with amazing buffs. If you want multiple Schematics to sell or have in case you die to a Sandworm and have to get more equipment, having a Lab nearby makes for easy raiding.

The Schematics will change regularly, making Lab raiding a necessity for many. Because of their unique nature, if you have a Lab nearby with good Schematics, you can make a good amount of money from this, which will help you throughout the game.

Setting up the Foundation

To set up the foundation of your base in Dune: Awakening, you'll require a Sub-fief Console. The amount of land you can claim depends on the type of Console you are using.

The Advanced Sub-fief Console will give you the most significant land claim, but you can expand this later on if you unlock the technology and have sufficient resources and minerals to construct.

To build your base in Dune: Awakening, you have a Build Tool. This allows you to use several build modes, selectable by right-clicking with the right mouse button. There's a build mode for building. Piece Picker will enable you to sample pick an item you're looking at.

Repair if your base has been damaged. Move allows you to move placed decorations and production items individually, and finally, Demolish will enable you to break down items individually.

Dune Awakening Guide, How To Build Bases, Setting up the Foundation

When designing your facility to be large and above the dunes, you'll want to provide sufficient foundations in Dune: Awakening. A 3x4 area foundation space for the main building is more than enough for any means of production that you'll have, particularly if you're utilizing several floors.

You'll also want an outside walkway with defensive posts and a shed for your Dirt Bike to protect it from deterioration.

You can choose between placeables, decorations, and the two sets of buildable buildings that can be used in-game now: the Choam-Shelter-Foundation (the generic Dune Universe sandstone-looking' buildings) and the Choam-Facility-Foundation, which is in appearance but roughly the same buildable.

In Dune: Awakening, PvP is confined to specific areas within the game. Even so, a powered base is automatically protected, preventing players from entering within the facility or even within storage units.

Just ensure you drop down a Generator as soon as you start your build, and you'll be all set, with a few exceptions within the deep desert. Be sure to keep the generator filled with fuel cells.

Once you construct walls around the facility, you may have access to lower railings to enable you to look over the battlements. If you need the facility to stand out, you can construct it several stories high.

Unfortunately, access to many of the decorations is restricted early on. These can be opened at shops, and the placeables can be unlocked in the tech tree.

Building Mechanics and Protection

With a base chosen, you can change the height or spin the building to your preference in Dune: Awakening. You can use this as a keystone to the remainder of your base, snapping pieces in place.

And if you want, you can build off the grid, provided it's within bounds, allowing you to build out multiple outbuildings, which could look cool for guilds running their small outpost.

The sun and heat are killers in Dune Awakening, giving you heat stroke and dehydration. It's highly recommended to build at night.

However, you shouldn't let your guard down, as you won't be safe from NPC Patrols. If you get caught in their searchlight, you'll be kept in a stasis field whilst they send down a kill team.

Dune Awakening Guide, How To Build Bases, Building Mechanics and Protection

This can prove frustrating, but you can avoid this by killing the Patrols with your shotgun or melee weapon. You can fight them hand-to-hand, but these Patrols wield guns that are especially good at piercing your shields.

It is strongly advised that you simply lay down grenades when they arrive, or fire shotguns at them, and construct a ceiling to keep you safe as soon as you can. This also helps with the sunlight during the day, so it should be prioritized.

Advanced Building Mechanics

In Dune: Awakening, you cannot build downwards along the cliffside with pillars supporting a walkway above; buildable sections must be supported, so you'll have to work from the ground up.

If you want to place supports, you can use floors and roofs to create unsupported sections.

One issue you might encounter is having the Sub-fief Console slightly misaligned, as it's not always easy to see the entire border when placing it.

If it's in the wrong position and you need to put a foundation slightly out of bounds to get the desired position of your build, you can't do much with that. You either have to abandon your base and rebuild, or you have to adjust your plans.

Dune Awakening Guide, How To Build Bases, Advanced Building Mechanics

You will be able to create blueprints of your builds to use elsewhere or sell on a player marketplace.

If you have any vehicles in Dune: Awakening, you'll need a place to store them. For your Sandbike, a little shed will do fine, but for buggies and Ornithopters, a hangar might be more appropriate, especially if you've got the bigger ones.

Also, check our Dune: Awakening Review and other guides below: