Spice Refinery: What Does It Mean in Dune: Awakening?
A Spice Refinery in Dune: Awakening is a base building that processes raw Spice Sand into Spice Melange, the game's most valuable resource. It needs water and base power to run and also produces Spice Residue as a by-product. Without a refinery, the spice you harvest cannot be turned into anything useful.
How It Works
You place a refinery inside your base and load it with Spice Sand and water. After a processing timer, it outputs Melange plus Residue. Refineries draw power from your base generators. Standard storage containers come with storage circuits that let devices across the base reach their contents, and the wiki lists refineries as able to access a vehicle.
There are three sizes. The bigger the refinery, the more efficient the conversion, according to the community wiki's recipe tables:
- Spice Refinery (small): 100 Spice Sand for 1 Melange and 5 Residue, in about 3 minutes.
- Medium Spice Refinery: 750 Spice Sand for 10 Melange and 75 Residue, in 7.5 minutes.
- Large Spice Refinery: 10,000 Spice Sand for 200 Melange and 1,000 Residue, in a 45-minute cycle.
Each size uses more power than the last: the community wiki lists roughly 200, 350 and 500 power for the small, medium and large models. The large refinery is also far sturdier, with 16 times the health of the small one, which matters if your base is ever attacked. Water costs per batch have changed between patches, so check the in-game recipe before planning your water supply. The medium and large models also cost Spice Melange to build, so most players start with the small refinery and work up.
Where the Spice Comes From
Spice Sand comes from spice fields created by spice blows on open sand. You can gather it by hand, with a handheld Static Compactor, or with a Sandcrawler, which vacuums a wide area and is the most efficient method. Every method creates sandworm threat, and hand gathering is the slowest, so you collect the least before a worm arrives. Field size makes a big difference: the community wiki puts a fully harvested small field at about 500 Spice Sand, a medium field at about 15,000 and a large field at about 250,000, before harvesting skills. Small fields appear in parts of the Hagga Basin such as the Vermillius Gap, Mysa Tarill and Sheol, while medium and large fields only spawn in the northern sectors of the Deep Desert.
What Melange and Residue Are Used For
- Melange: sold for Solari and used in close to two hundred recipes, from advanced armor to vehicle parts.
- Spice Residue: an ingredient in chemical refineries, for example to make Industrial-grade Lubricant and Spice-infused Fuel Cells, and in Particulate Filters for Large Windtraps.
Tips
- Plan water first. Refining is water-hungry, so build windtraps and storage before scaling up.
- Check power. A refinery will not run without enough generator output for its draw.
- Place storage containers with storage circuits near your refineries to cut down on manual hauling.
- Save Melange from the small refinery to afford the medium one; it is the biggest early efficiency jump.
- Carry spice home fast. Anything a sandworm swallows, including a loaded vehicle, is lost permanently.
Patch notes with recipe changes are posted on the official Dune: Awakening site.
FAQ
Why is my Spice Refinery not working?
The usual causes are no power, no water, or no Spice Sand in its inventory or connected storage.
Is the Large Spice Refinery worth it?
For large amounts of sand, yes: it converts at twice the efficiency of the small model. It is expensive to build and needs a steady water supply.
What is Spice Residue for?
Residue is a crafting ingredient used in chemical refineries and in the filters that keep Large Windtraps running. Keep it rather than throwing it away.
Can I refine spice without a base?
No. Refineries are placeable base structures that need power, so you need a base with generators.
