In Dune: Awakening, after you pass the initial stages of the game, your dependence on vehicles increases rapidly. With Arrakis’s rough landscape and long travel times, your Sandbike is more than a luxury—it’s a requirement. Not only does it significantly reduce travel time, but it also conserves your precious survival resources, such as water.
But with all that hard use comes wear and tear. At some point, you’ll find your Sandbike picking up damage. Don’t panic—this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to rip it apart and begin anew. Repairs are not only possible but also simple once you realise what you’re doing.
Getting Started with Repairs
To fix your Sandbike, you need the same tool you used to make it in the first place: the Welding Tool. If you’ve already built one, you’re halfway there. The other thing you’ll need is Welding wire, and that isn’t exactly lying around.
You’ll need to craft it. Five units of Scavenged Metal a spool takes; find yourself a Fabricator. The good news is that if you’ve already researched the Welding Tool, you’ll automatically have access to the Welding Wire recipe too—no extra unlocks needed.
How to Know When Repairs Are Needed?
Your Sandbike is equipped with a standard visual gauge on your HUD: a schematic model pops up on-screen whenever you’re driving it. The different components change their colour depending on their state; the darker the colour, the poorer their condition is. Although it provides an approximation, this is not always highly precise or informative.
To get a detailed breakdown, walk beside your Sandbike and press the F key to access the vehicle’s management menu. Inside that, choose the option labelled ‘Manage Vehicle’. This will provide you with diagnostics that include full details on the condition of each component, giving you a clearer idea of what needs to be repaired and the urgency level.
Performing the Repair
With your Welding Tool and Welding Wire ready, it’s time to start fixing things. Equip the Welding Tool and right-click to cycle its modes until it switches to the Repair function. You’ll now be able to use it to mend damaged components on your Sandbike.
Positioning is everything. Shoot straight for the exact piece that requires fixing—but don’t be surprised if it’s a tad finicky. Occasionally, the aiming can be clunky. If you’re experiencing difficulties, stand around the bike and experiment with pointing from various directions.
Another item to consider is the cost of each fix event. Each time you fix something, it loses maximum durability. For instance, consider a piece of equipment with a maximum durability of 100 that has been severely damaged. A repair could leave you with a score of 90 or lower. It all adds up eventually.
When to Replace Instead of Repair?
Finally, no matter how well you maintain your Sandbike, its parts will eventually reach a point where repairs just don’t make sense. When maximum durability gets too low, it is time to replace specific parts outright. However, regular maintenance with the Welding Tool will give you a lot of use before you ever need to rebuild or upgrade.
Keeping your Sandbike in running order ensures that you can zip around the dunes of Arrakis with little downtime—and fewer Sandworm encounters. Repairing costs resources, but it’s worth it every time: scrap for scrap of metal.
