Here’s the thing about me and video game housing – I really love it (but y’all knew that already), and I think I’m fairly good at decorating an already good-looking, pre-built abode with furniture and stuff.
Every once in a while I can even get a bit creative, like when I designed this library on a floating platform made out of coffins in my Warlock’s Everquest II Freeport home:
However, my creativity definitely has its limits. While I was building my first two bases in Dune: Awakening those limits already reared their ugly head, as I had a really hard time imagining how to mold all those different floors, walls, roofs, inclines and whathaveyou into anything other than a functional but ugly cube. I would not have made a good architect, that much is certain.
I knew that I wanted my next and probably permanent main base to look at least somewhat nice though, so I started to look around and see what other players have done to get some inspiration.
Unsurprisingly, YouTube turned out to be the best place for that. What did surprise me was that some folks don’t just show off their great designs, they’ve even included step by step instructions to recreate them.
So that’s what I did to get started. Many thanks to Arathy of Crimson Builds for creating this base and taking the time to make that video!
I still had to get a bit creative though, because, as you can see, the site I’d chosen to build the base at isn’t just flat land – what can I say, I need to have a room with a view – and the game doesn’t support terraforming. You can build in, around and even through concrete rock, but there are limits. Also, when there’s rock or sand inside your base you can’t place any facilities or furniture on top of it.
To circumvent losing too much usable space on the ground floor I’d raised the foundations as much as possible at first – it seemed to be a good idea at the time. I didn’t place all of them right away though, as I needed to procure a lot more resources for the full build first. To protect the buggy and myself in the meantime I quickly erected some walls and a roof, and placed some generators, water cisterns and storage containers to collect and refine the building materials on site.
Once preparations were completed I tore down the roof and walls again and extended the foundations in all directions to complete the intended footprint – at least I tried to. Unfortunately the natural ground declines a bit towards the cliffs, and the game didn’t let me place the last row for lack of support.
Adjacent foundations have to be built at the same height, so I had no other choice than to tear them all down and start over. However, there was lots of stuff lying around by now. Grrrr!
What happened next was basically a game of Tetris. Move all facilities to one side, tear some foundations down, build new ones on a lower level, push everything onto those, destroy the rest…all while trying not to get a sunburn and hoping for the next sandstorm to take its sweet time.
It all worked out in the end, and once the foundations were in place finishing the build wasn’t much of a problem.
I’ve been using this base for about ten days since then, and I’m really digging it. Also, now I’m much more in my element again, namely taking something that’s already there and refining it to my liking. I add, remove or memodel bits and pieces all the time, and I’ll continue to do so until I’m completely satisfied.
The “generator wing” seen above, for example, was a thorn in my side right from the start. Then I remembered that those things basically don’t have to be touched anymore once they’re up and running, so I built another floor on top of them and covered the gap with some stairs. Now it’s as if that part of the house doesn’t exist, and I’ve gained an elevated relaxation- or conference-area that I didn’t have room for before.
I have few points of comparison, but I think the building system is really robust and fairly easy to use. Most of the time things snap together just as I’d like them to right away, and if they don’t I usually only need to rotate them or reposition myself a bit.
Gathering the needed materials takes a while, but with a buggy it’s pretty easy. You can buy more and more different furniture- as well as building-sets over time, too. I just wish those schematics would state the required resources. I was a bit irritated at first when I realized that I needed “plastone” to actually use the Atreides set I’d just spent 80k Solaris on, which I didn’t have nor knew how or where to get at the time.
Minor gripes aside though, this is one more aspect of the game that I’m overall very happy with.
By the way, if you think this base looks good or even great, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Funcom held a building contest a while ago, and many of the entries, even the ones that didn’t win, are absolutely awesome.
This one is my favourite. I really like designs that have an Asian feel to them.
That being said, I do concur with the chosen winner of the same category (Atreides), because that one is truly mindblowing:
They’re also much bigger than they come across on screenshots.
So, yeah, the base building in Dune: Awakening is really something else. If you fancy that kind of stuff this alone is reason enough to play the game I’d say.
Maybe, one day, I’ll even design something completely of my own.
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