One of your first challenges in Dune: Awakening is working out how to get water in the dry deserts of Arrakis. Not only is water vital to keep your character hydrated (and living), but it’s also used in various crafting processes, such as making iron ingots early on. As you progress between each area, biome heat will also rise, meaning your hydration meter will fall more rapidly and you’ll have to drink more.
It’s no overstatement to say that water is likely to be the most significant resource throttle in terms of crafting and upgrading—not all that surprising for a game set in a desert, I suppose. I’ll run through the best ways to get water in Dune: Awakening, as well as some tips to make your water harvesting more efficient.
Lick dew from plants (you filthy animal)
When you first crash on Arrakis, this is your initial method of getting water. Simply find a Primrose patch and interact with it to drink any dew. The primary limitation of this is that it will only fill your hydration meter—the blue bar in the bottom left—to the top of its first segment and not one drop more, so you’ll quickly want to find other methods. This is essentially your most basic emergency survival method where water is concerned.
Filter blood into water
Your next best option (and arguably the best method once you’ve got a few upgrades) comes once you start a base, then research and craft a Blood Extractor Mk1 and a Blood Purifier. When you kill a scavenger or any other human enemy, you can equip your extractor and harvest 1,000 ml of blood, though you will need to craft a blood bag to store it. Each blood bag holds 3,000 ml, so three dead enemies to a bag, essentially.
When you return to your base, interact with the blood purifier and deposit blood in it to slowly turn that into tasty, tasty water. As you progress, you can unlock better blood extractors that harvest more, blood bags that hold more, and improved blood purifiers that convert at a faster rate. I even found a unique blood bag permit in a chest on top of the Table of the Gods in West Vermillius Gap that had a reduced decay rate so I could get more blood for my buck. This’ll keep your water supplies stocked reliably, which is crucial as some crafting recipes require water.
If you’re ever in a tight spot, you can also choose to drink blood raw, though this is significantly less efficient than turning it into water back at base.
Craft a Literjon and steal water
If you’re serious about water efficiency, then you’ll want to craft a Literjon as soon as possible. You can buy a permit for a unique one of these water containers at the Griffin’s Reach Outpost in Hagga Basin South and I recommend you do this since it has increased capacity—hell, maybe even buy two or three.
Literjons let you carry water around with you to drink, but also give you somewhere to store it when extracting it from various sources. If you’re exploring a base, outpost, or Imperial Testing Station, you’ll occasionally find drinking points, and if you have a Literjon you can partially fill it for later. These containers will also be vital for storage when you unlock the Dew Reaper and use that to harvest water.
Drink from your stillsuit
You unlock your first Stillsuit through the Trial of Aql quests, and it’s pretty easy to use. Essentially, as you lose moisture and your hydration bar depletes, a little bar will build next to it. Press F to drink and you’ll deplete this bar, chugging down some of the lovely recycled water that your suit has saved. It’s that simple. The only downside with Stillsuits is that they have less armour and stats than other gear, prioritising a free drink over protection.
Harvest water with a Dew Reaper and build a cistern
If you’re tired of hauling around a million blood bags in your inventory, then you should research and craft a Dew Reaper as soon as possible. This tool lets you harvest water from plants at nighttime to fill your Literjons, and it’s definitely easier work than killing bandits and distilling blood. Just build your base near some plant fields and when it comes to night, head out and fill your Literjons before depositing that water back into your blood purifier or cistern once you build one of those for improved storage.
Some enemies in the Vermillius Gap area carry Dew Reapers you can steal—I found multiple in the outposts and camps around the base of the big hammer rock at the region’s centre before I even researched it as a schematic, so it’s well worth taking a look.
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