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As a crafting and survival game,Dune: Awakeningencourages players to keep track of and manage various mechanics throughout their journey on Arrakis. One such mechanic is known as research, and is one of the most important gameplay elements to understand early on, especially because the game itself doesn’t do all that much to explain how this works.
That’s why we’ve created this guide, which not only breaks down the processes that go into research but also demonstrates why it’s important to master this skill quickly in Dune: Awakening. With that in mind, here’s everything you need to know about research.
What Is Research?
In Dune: Awakening,research is a gameplay mechanicthat allows players tounlock items, weapons, and morefor their use.
By going to your player menu and selecting the tab ‘Research,’ you’ll be able to see various tabs ofresearch trees, which include weapons, water discipline tech, and more.
To improve and progress through your campaign, you’ll need tounlock more researchso that you can subsequently craft and fabricate these items andbecome more powerful.
During the tutorial of Dune: Awakening, your guide on Arrakis will walk you through some basic research projects.
However, beyond the tutorial,it’s up to you to determine what research to unlockand what seems the most valuable.
How Research Works
Research functions similarly to a skill tree, with some notable exceptions to mechanics. Research is broken down intovarious categories, detailed below:
Details
Essentials
Items that must be researched to progress main story quests, either in the tutorial or later on in the game.
Water Discipline
Items and technology that preserve your water resources and can improve your hydration overall on Arrakis.
Weapons
Items that improve your weapons, armor, and general loadout, whether ranged or melee.
Construction
Items that improve sub-fief construction or contribute to refinement, power, and fabrication processes within your sub-fief.
Exploration
Items that help you unlock areas of Arrakis and explore the terrain, such as binoculars or survey drones.
Vehicles
Items that allow you to better traverse Arrakis, such as sand bikes and more.
Uniques
Special items from all categories, like armor, weapons, and more.
Each category of research also has various tiers, broken down by material type, including salvage, copper, aluminum, and more.
How To Unlock Research
On Arrakis,players must unlock research by spending a currency known as Intel(which we’ll go into in more detail below).
Intel is gained in various waysthroughout your adventure. Once you have it, you can spend various Intel points on research projects of your choosing.
While each category of research has various boons and banes, early on in your adventure, you’ll want toprioritize water discipline, weapons, and essentials.
However,to unlock higher tiers of research(aka, more powerful versions of items), you must firstspend a certain amount of Intel, passing a threshold listed in each tier.
Once you unlock the research,you’re able to then craft or fabricate items from the research bundleprovided you have the proper materials.
You can see what each research bundle containsand the types of materials you’ll need to fabricate the items insideby selecting the bundleand highlighting the individual items.
How To Gain Intel
There are two main methods of gaining Intelin Dune: Awakening.
First, by playing Dune: Awakening as normal, you willlevel up your character, and you can gain Intel points. Each time you level up, you’ll gain a handful of Intel points.
You canearn XP to level upby completing game missions, completing contracts, fighting enemies, and more.
Secondly, you canhead to specific locations labeled on your map with Intel.
When highlighting a map location (typically, a Breaker Station),the map will tell you what resource can be found there, whether that resource be Intel or materials.
If you don’t see any Intel sites,try using a Survey Droneto scour the nearby area.
Usually,you’ll be able to acquire one Intel at the locationby clearing out the encampment and looting chests in the vicinity. While this isnot as efficient as simply gathering XP, you’ll still get XP for the combat encounter as well.
There’s not much point in hoarding Intel; once you have it in your possession, spend it!
