Big Dune Awakening patch adds cross-sietch land-claiming, nerfs Scout thopter, and PvE-fies southern Deep Desert

Dune Awakening patch 1.1.0.17 just went live, and it's easily the biggest hotfix under the 1.1.0 umbrella. Specifically, this patch marks the first step towards making the Dune Awakening endgame area somewhat PvE-friendly. Last week, the game's Creative Director said they will no longer force PvP for players who want to just do PvE content, and today's patch makes good on that promise.

Most notably Dune Awakening patch 1.1.0.17 makes the following changes:

Deep Desert'southern half is now PvE-only areas, so there's a lot of room for non-PvP players to grow now compared to before. Wrecks, however, still remain PvP zones.
Scout Ornithopters now get a 20% reduction to their speed upon equipping Rocket Launcher module.
You can now take your character to any other Sietch in the server world and claim land there.

That's far from the entire extent of the 2.6 gb patch today, though. For those who want a more comprehensive look, here's everything that changed in Dune Awakening with patch 1.1.0.17.

Dune Awakening patch notes for 1.1.0.17 (June 26)

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The first set of changes makes a commitment to providing a PvE alternative for previously PvP-locked gear in Dune Awakening (to some extent). This is just the first iteration towards this balancing, so further tuning will be made in due time.

The PvE area has been adjusted to encompass the entire southern half of the Deep Desert map.
This means that players who have no interest in PvP should be able to find what they want without engaging in PvP. Imperial Testing Stations, caves, and so forth found in this area are thus now PvE.
Control Points and Shipwrecks will, however, continue to be PvP throughout the entire map, which means you will find localized pockets of PvP within the PvE section still. Similar to how Shipwrecks are PvP in Hagga Basin.
To retain the Risk vs Reward setup for the Deep Desert:
The density of resources increases the further north you go. This includes high-density clusters of valuable resources.
The largest spice fields will also spawn in the north.
The majority of Control Points will exist in the northern part.
As part of these changes, the developers have made some balancing adjustments in the Deep Desert:
The lower half of the Deep Desert now offers PvE loot that is balanced toward shared loot and PvE activities. You may find better loot in the more dangerous PvP area located further north on the map. In the PvE area, for example, each player gets their own loot and can expect to receive one schematic. In the PvP area, loot is distributed on a “first come, first served” basis, with higher quantities of everything. Players can expect to find 2–6 schematics there, which are among the rarest.
Plasteel plates can only be found in PvP zones.
The amount of active medium spice fields has been reduced from 8 to 5.
The number of active small spice fields has increased from 20 to 22.
The spawn rate of Titanium and Stravidium has been reduced in the PvE areas so that large quantities only spawn in the far-out PvP areas.
The number of nodes in resource hotspots in the PvE part of the map has been reduced.
The respawn time of Titanium and Stravidium has increased from 30 to 45 minutes.
Some Imperial Testing Stations are still in the PvP region, and players who want all schematics available each week will want to visit both the PvP and PvE Imperial Testing Stations. Keep in mind the loot in them rotates each week, so even if you’re not interested in PvP, you could obtain it at a later date if you’re not able to trade for it or buy it off the Exchange.

Vehicles:

Equipping a Rocket Launcher Module will now decrease the top speed of your Ornithopter.
For Scout Ornithopters, the reduction is 20%.
For Assault Ornithopters, the reduction is 10%.
Infocards for the modules now reflect this change.
Exiting ornithopters mid-air will now cause them to drop straight down instead of gliding away. This should decrease the chance that you lose your ornithopter upon disconnecting from the game or exiting by accident your ornithopter mid-air.
Known issue: There is an edge case that if your vehicle ends up in the quicksand you might not be able to interact with it if you are in the quicksand. The workaround is to try to get on top of the vehicle to interact with it. This will be fixed in the very next patch.

Visiting:

Dune Awakening has removed the restrictions when visiting other sietches. Before this change, players had their “home” sietches, and could visit other sietches in their world but couldn’t claim land. Now, any player can go to any sietch in their world and claim land wherever they want.

Technical and stability:

Increased game stability.
The latest NVIDIA driver was added to the GPU driver check at the game launch.

Other

Patch 1.1.0.17 introduced Player Reporting, allowing players to now report other players’ messages from the text chat or report players from the Inspect menu on players.

Note that Dune Awakening also has a Public Test Client now if you want an early taste of the July patch, 1.1.10.0. Meanwhile, as indicated by today's patch, the live client will also continue to receive updates independently.

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About the author

Sambit Pal is an esports Journalist on Gaming and MMO at Sportskeeda. He has Master's degree in English Literature. In his spare time, he is an amateur sleuth trying to trace the Riven Mafia in Warframe, and a recovering Bethesda modding addict. He also secretly enjoys action Roguelites, a severe lack of gitting gud notwithstanding.

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Edited by Sambit Pal