If you’re playing the 4X RTS Dune: Spice Wars, it’s important to know how to use Airfields. Due to the type of RTS that this game is, you won’t have tons of units to defend your vast territory. This is why you’ll need a useful trick to transport them between villages quickly so you’re always ready.
The main issue with producing enough units to defend your many villages is running out of resources. While you can stockpile some when you’re overproducing, chances are the upkeep will catch up to you. Not to mention, other mechanics like Command Points to increases the size of your army.
How to Use Airfields in Dune: Spice Wars
How to Build Airfields First
Even though certain buildings in Dune: Spice Wars require researching technology/Developments, you won’t need to for Airfields. You should be able to place this building immediately as long as you have the necessary resources. The cost should be the same unless your village has the Handymen perk reducing building construction costs by -20%.
- 255 Plascrete
- 2 Fuel Cells
- Upkeep includes Solari, Plascrete, Manpower, and Fuel Cells.
Upkeep costs seem to vary likely depending on how many Airfields you have built. For example, in one match I have three Airfields and the upkeep cost is 8 Solari, 8 Plascrete, 3 Manpower, and 2 Fuel Cells each. As long as you can keep up with those requirements, it’ll pay off when a faction attacks or a random raid invades.
Fortunately, you won’t need to place one at your main base not that you could even if you wanted to. Your base already functions as one so you can always transport units to it from other Airfields in villages. Continue reading the next section for how to use Airfields in Dune: Spice Wars.
How to Transport Units Using Airfields
If you’ve already built one in a village, you’ll need to get your units within range of it. By default, the overlay/filter won’t be on to show their range. I recommend zooming out enough that the map changes and you get six buttons at the bottom center of your screen. The sixth one on the right will enable Airfield ranges regardless of if you’re zoomed in or not.
This makes it much easier to quickly understand which villages have one built and how close you need to get. Once your unit or group of units is in range, take a look at their window near the bottom left corner. There are two buttons at the top right corner of this window. Make sure you check which each button is before clicking one pre-emptively.
The first button with an arrow pointing up is for shuttling your units using an Airfield. By default, it costs 20 Solari to use per unit. The second button is for disbanding a unit which you won’t get any resources back for. Fortunately, Dune: Spice Wars will give you a warning and confirmation window upon clicking it.
Upon using the Shuttle button, the Airfield filter will activate even if you don’t have it enabled. Then, all you need to do is click within one of those circles to land there. It’s important to note that your units won’t immediately teleport there. They’ll still need to travel there via shuttles automatically which shouldn’t take too long.
I recommend avoiding building too many Airfields since those resource upkeeps can increase quickly. Instead, try to place one near the edge of your territory or where you expect attacks to come from most. This will help keep your defense capabilities up without limiting your resources too heavily.
If you can keep Sietch’s friendly in the late game, you won’t have to worry as much about raids. This makes it easier to prioritize focusing on other factions which may reduce the amount of Airfields needed. Otherwise, you get stuck constantly managing your resources and that can be a struggle.
That’s all there is to this Dune: Spice Wars guide on how to use airfields. This simple building is easily a game-changer for defending your territory with a small number of units. It becomes impossible otherwise if you’re trying to defend against multiple enemies. Especially if you’re trying to control multiple regions for Hegemony to win Dune: Spice Wars.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.