Dune Awakening's August patch might make one critical resource much harder to farm

If you're trying to get into Dune Awakening as a new player sometime after August, prepare for a very rough landing. Funcom intends to release a major balance patch sometime on or after August 12, and afterwards, one specific resource is getting significantly harder to farm. I'm talking about Flour Sand - something that wasn't on anyone's bingo for the next big patch.

So, what exactly is changing with it? Essentially, it will be far riskier to scoop it up by the pounds after the patch hits.

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How Dune Awakening is making Flour Sand much costlier for solo players

There's no longer any free Flour Sand pockets (Image via Funcom)

Flour Sand is something you have to start hoarding right after you reach Vermillius Gap, the second (and third) areas where you pick up the trail in Dune Awakening. This is the raw material for making Silicone Blocks, a crucial ingredient in building a lot of the Iron-tier facilities and gear. Without Silicone Blocks, you're likely never progressing into the later, deadlier zones in Hagga Basin.

Flour Sand liberally drops by tiny amounts from bandits, boxes, and most things you can loot in this area, but the only way to bulk-farm it would be to brave the crimson sands. Generally, as its name implies, you can harvest it on smoking deposits of white flour patches out in the open sand.

Except, there are at least three areas throughout West and East Vermillius Gap where you can fill up your inventory with Flour Sand from relative safety - because they're quite close to the rock face. If you're careful, you can collect a huge amount without ever attracting a sandworm.

Except, the August patch now aims to move all these areas further into the desert. That's not all, either. Unless you want to dig it by hand for hours, you're practically railroaded by the game's Fremen Trials to get and use the Static Compactor.

The upcoming patch will hit even this side of the deal. The Static Compactor will now draw more attention from the Sandworm.

Ultimately, it's the solo players who will be hit the hardest by this direction of balance. Normally, if you're playing with a squad, you're supposed to set someone up with a Thumper to distract the Sandworm while you smuggle the white stuff under its nose.

Without a buddy, though, you have no one to take away Sandworm aggro to some other corner of the desert. When it inevitably comes for you, you're sitting ducks in the middle of the sand. There's no player-two keeping the engine on the sandbike running to bail you out.

The Static Compactor nerf does, of course, also affect Spice farming in the lategame. But the double whammy here puts up a giant roadblock in progression. If you're a new solo player (or starting a fresh character), you're basically incentivized to at get someone to help you. Which, we suppose, makes sense for an MMO, but nevertheless bad news for solo players like me.

The reason we said might in the title, though, is because the patch is currently out in a public test client (1.1.12 patch notes here if you want to go through it). As the PTC makes everyone start over from the beginning, perhaps player feedback will make the developers come to a compromise in making Flour Sand more accessible.

Even if it they don't, it's probably not all bad news for the Flour Sand economy. Low-Grade Lubricant, the biggest Flour Sand-come-Silicone Block sink after you've moved on to craft Steel and better tech, is now getting 90% cheaper at vendors.

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Check out more Dune Awakening news and guides from Sportskeeda:

• Dune Awakening Roadmap
• Dune Awakening: All Unique Schematics in Vermillius Gap (East and West)
• Dune Awakening: Wreck of the Pallas walkthrough
• Dune Awakening: Imperial Station 2 complete walkthrough

Edited by Sambit Pal