Since I’ve been going to the Deep Desert, I've noticed every week they move the closest large spice fields to the PvE section that are still in the PvP section even further deeper in. This time around, I was no longer close enough to just pop over and see if it was up.

There was also a lot of turmoil going on. The friendly vibe that I had enjoyed in the past weeks was gone.

I also just kept having a lot of bad luck with the large spice fields. I’d find one, and it would be mostly cleaned out. I’d get a couple of inventories full of spice, and the big sand worm would show up and eat what was remaining.

It was also clear that the deepest large spice fields were having a much higher rate of spawning. I was lucky to see the nearest to my base up maybe once. Then the worm ate it shortly later.

There were even parts of the week were I just flat out left the Deep Desert to go farm non-tier 6 materials back in Hagga Basin. By this point, a lot of the remaining active player base had made it into the Deep Desert. During certain hours of the day, it was slim pickings for any Tier 6 ores in the PvE section.

My bad luck regarding large spice fields also continued. I went flying around, seeing if anywhere up. I noticed one was, and right before I even landed, the warning bar went to full red. I flew away from the spice field ring, and sure enough, the spice disappeared. The large spice worm dubbed pappa foiled me again.

Sometimes, out of entertainment, I'd just stay logged into the Deep Desert just to read all the mudslinging that was going on in chat. I could not help but laugh at just how toxic things were getting. This is why I stay away from PvP games like this. Chat read like a bunch of children all just saying random slurs at each other and anything they think made them sound tough. It was also, at the same time, rather disappointing to see.

During one of my trips into the PvP section of the Deep Desert looking for large spice fields. I almost got taken out by one spawning. I noticed the sands were bubbling and instantly flew back a bit.

Moments later, a shockwave passed by my Ornithopter. To my shock, I was not even the first one there despite how close I was. By the time I landed, others were already gathering. They must have been close to getting killed by the blast wave as well.

I was quite thrilled to be farming a large spice field that was so fresh. The only downside it was already 2 AM, and I was it was quite deep into the desert. So traveling back and forth was going to take some time.

With how bad the week had been going for getting spice. I decided it was now or never. After filling my Scout Ornithopter, I swapped it out for the Assault. It had double the cargo capacity. It’s just a bit slower and more of a pain to go long distances in. I could, however, hold over 7k spice sand between vehicle storage and my inventory per trip. Making it worth it.

Between finding that large spice field and another the next day. I was able to build the Sand Crawler. For an unknown amount of time, moving forward, this thing was just going to act as a giant storage container, moving materials from a dump base out to a main Deep Desert base.

This ended up motivating me enough to start taking on a bit more risk. I was getting a little tired of how long it was taking to farm things like the tier 6 ores by just staying in the PvE section of the Deep Desert. There were also some schematics I wanted, but they required some risk.

I was not that shocked. I ended up getting ganked by a large group camping one of the wrecks I wanted to farm for schematics. I was, in fact, a bit shocked it had not happened sooner. Thankfully, I was always dropping off loot before I'd take on such a risk as to enter a PvP area.

After getting killed a few times and not getting any of the drops I wanted. I decide I should look into the Landsraad system. I had been ignoring it up till now, as I have been so busy farming spice and tier 6 ores.

It turns out I had been missing out on some good stuff. About 4 hours before the timer hit zero, I managed to get the guild signed up and an understanding of how the system worked. I even found one of the tasks where I could get the dream dagger I always wanted, a Cauterizer.

I thought I just needed 10k points from killing Kirab NPCs. That would require a little under 460 kills. While that might not sound like a lot. A normal camp might only have 1 or 2 NPCS. An outpost, if I were lucky, had 10-15. I also thought I only had a couple of hours remaining.

The best part was that I did not have to fight any NPCs in the Deep Desert. I could do this while in Hagga Basin. So, I set out to do what I do best. Go on a massive spree, grinding points away. After exploring around a bit, I found where the Kirab NPCs were.

At around the 4k points earned for the task. I had a real-life event requiring me to log out of the game. It was already going to be a close call as it was. I went off and did that and returned as quickly as I could.

I then bumped things into overdrive. The number of points that would have taken me at least another two hours. I managed to get in under one. I was even within the home stretch. Then the unthinkable happened.

I needed a couple more kills, and a sandstorm was about to hit. So I flew off to the next outpost, hoping it would be up. While getting hit with the sandstorm, I cleared the outpost, almost getting killed myself.

Once it was fully cleared, I opened the Landsraad page. 11 seconds were remaining on the timer. That was also when I realized I had misread what I needed. I thought I only needed 10k points, but I needed 10,500 points. That would end up putting me 619 points short. I was devastated to say the least. So, I went AFK for a short while to cool off.

By the time I got back, I was just in the mood to hunt some NPCs down. So, I flew off to the next little camp that was on my route. To my shock, it said after killing one of them that I got points. The timer ended before the Deep Desert reset. It turns out there was still time left to get points.

Needless to say, I was grinning ear to ear as I went around getting the final kills that I'd need for the dagger. After getting the points, I just had to find the house representative and go claim my reward.

I then took a look at some other Landsraad tasks and finished off any that were easy and had stuff I wanted. While I was not earning any points for the Harkonnen. I was just happy to be getting some tier 6 schematics that would come in handy at some point.

Final Thoughts

That ended up being quite a thrilling and shocking end to my week. I could not wait to get my hands on some materials I still had back in my Deep Desert base and craft up the dagger. I’ve been needing a decent dagger upgrade for quite some time.

It was then time to take out the Deep Desert base for the week and pack up. This time, most of the stuff fit into the crawler that we could then go offload at the dump base. Saving quite a few long trips across the open sand. From there, we just had to haul stuff back to Hagga Basin.

It’s always a little sad when the Deep Desert week ends. So many memories in such a short amount of time. Anything not hauled out would get wiped away from the sands. As they reshape the Deep Desert for another week.

Like I had done before. I found it best to take a week off from the Deep Desert. It’s quite a stressful environment. You also feel quite committed to spending as much time as you can in there once you get set up for a week.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Dune: Awakening.