Dune Awakening: The Ultimate Sandbike Guide
In Dune: Awakening, few things are as essential-or as fun-as getting your first sandbike. These agile three-wheeled vehicles make traversing Arrakis far safer and faster, letting you cross deadly open deserts without becoming a sandworm snack. They even help protect you from heatstroke while riding, though it's anyone's guess how that works scientifically.
Whether you're progressing through the game's questline or playing in a free-form mode with the tech tree fully unlocked, getting a sandbike early gives you an incredible advantage. Below, you'll learn how to research, craft, assemble, and maintain your sandbike-as well as how to keep it safe from storms, scavengers, and thieves.
Unlocking Sandbike Crafting
To begin, you'll need to research the Sandbike Mk1 Assembly schematic from the Vehicles section of your research menu. In guided mode, this becomes available during the Across the Gap quest, which sends you to ransack Imperial Testing Station 2.
Inside the testing station's chests, you can find key vehicle components:
Sandbike Engine Mk1
Sandbike PSU Mk1
Advanced Servoks
Particle Capacitors
These are crucial for fabricating your first sandbike. You'll also need copper ingots, which are easy to obtain. Simply mine blue rock nodes with your cutteray to collect copper ore, then refine it using the small ore refinery (something you'll unlock earlier in the A Touch of Civilization quest).
Essential Tools and Materials
Before you can build your sandbike, make sure you've crafted the following:
Welding Torch: A specialized building tool required to assemble and later repair your sandbike.
Vehicle Fuel Cell: Provides the energy your sandbike needs to run. This depletes over time, just like a battery or power pack.
Fuel cells can be crafted in the small chemical refinery after you research and construct one. They also appear frequently in scavenger camps and outposts, so scavenging is a solid backup plan if you're short on materials.
Assembling the Sandbike
With all the parts ready, it's time for the fun part-construction. Equip your welding torch, place the sandbike chassis, and attach each component one by one: the engine, power supply, frame, and modules. Once everything is installed, interact with the sandbike to open its mini-menu and choose the Fuel option to fill it up.
And that's it-you're ready to tear across the dunes of Arrakis in style.
Repairing and Maintaining Your Sandbike
Inevitably, your sandbike will take damage-whether from scavengers, environmental hazards, or storms. When this happens, you'll need to fabricate welding wire for repairs.
Equip your welding torch, cycle to the Repair function, and hover over each vehicle module to view its condition. Click to weld and restore health, using up welding wire as you go.
One key limitation: you can't fully repair the red portion of a module's health bar with just wire. That means your bike will never be completely "like new" without professional restoration, so avoid taking unnecessary hits when you can.
If your sandbike is destroyed or abandoned in a dangerous area, don't panic. You can disassemble each module using the welding torch's Detach function, then repair them individually at a Repair Station-after you've researched and built one, of course.
Preventing Theft and Storm Damage
Arrakis isn't kind to unattended vehicles. Leave your sandbike sitting around too long, and one of two things will happen:
Another player will steal it.
A sandstorm will destroy it.
To keep your ride safe, you have two main options:
1. Build a Garage
Construct a garage at your base to store your sandbike securely. This not only shields it from storms but also keeps it safe from other players. Just remember to power your base with fuel cells-otherwise, anyone might wander in and take your bike.
This method is ideal if you frequently return to your base between expeditions. It also lets you store your sandbike inventory module and keep your stored items intact.
2. Use the Vehicle Backup Tool
If you're far from home or need to log off, research and craft the vehicle backup tool. This device allows you to store your sandbike in your inventory, protecting it from both theft and the environment.
There's one drawback: you can't store a vehicle with Dune Awakening Items in its storage module. If your bike's carrying loot, you'll have to empty it before backing it up. It's inconvenient-but much better than losing your entire ride to a passing storm.
Finding Replacement Sandbikes
If your sandbike does get destroyed, don't despair-there's a chance to find new ones out in the wild. Once you move north from Hagga Basin South, you'll start encountering settlements with unclaimed sandbikes.
At The Anvil in Eastern Vermillius Gap, for instance, you can often find unowned sandbikes inside the hangar marked with a bike hologram on the outpost's east side. It's unclear whether these are player-abandoned or world-spawned, but either way, they're yours for the taking.
If you have a friend with a sandbike, you can even craft a second-seat module to hitch a ride and reach these spots faster. With a bit of luck, you can snag a free replacement bike without crafting a new one from scratch.
Final Thoughts
A sandbike is more than just transportation in Dune: Awakening-it's your lifeline. From dodging sandworms to navigating vast deserts, having a reliable vehicle makes survival infinitely easier. Take the time to research the right schematics, use Dune Awakening Solari and maintain your gear, and protect your ride when you log off.
Whether you build it from scratch or claim an abandoned one in the wastes, your sandbike is the key to mastering Arrakis-and living long enough to tell the tale.
MMOexp Dune Awakening Team