If you really want to come out on top in Dune Spice Wars, you’ll need to know exactly how to get the most out of your Spice harvesting, which in turn leads to more Solari money. Note: Since the game is in Early Access, it’s possible these tips will change over time.
How to Optimize Spice Harvesting in Dune Spice Wars
Harvesting Spice is easy enough: all you have to do is take over a village that has Spice nearby and build a Spice Harvester to harvest it. If you’re playing as the Fremen, you’ll collect the resource automatically and won’t have to worry about Sandworms. If you’re playing as any of the other factions, however, you’ll want to set your harvester to auto-recall, so it’ll come back automatically if a sandworm appears.
From the start, you can assign one crew member to each harvester by spending 50 Manpower. This increases the amount of Spice your harvester takes in each day. A good rule of thumb is that you always want all crew slots filled on all of your harvesters.
To increase your harvesting rate — and crew slots — invest in research in the orange category, which is tied to Economy. After investing in the first research, “Composite Materials,” you should immediately invest in “Arrakis Secrets” right below it.
Arrakis Secrets lets you unlock the Spice Silos building. Placing this building in a region increases the harvest of that region by 20%, and can also affect up to one neighboring region as well. The other two pieces of research in that line are worth investing in as well, as they let you assign more crew members and increase your harvesting rate by another 10%.
Past that, if you want to gather a little bit more Spice, keep an eye on the scouting with your Ornithopters. Various icons pop up on your map as the Ornithopters explore, and Crashed Shuttles will always contain some kind of resource to gather. This can be Solari, Spice, or Plastcrete, and you can send an Ornithoper to any Crashed Shuttle on the map to gather that resource.
Finally, some Sietches will trade Spice for water, so check any that you might discover to see what they’re trading. Of course, if you need the resource in a pinch to meet the Spice Tax, you can always try and trade with the other factions, as well.
How the Spice Slider Works
Before going over a few ways to get extra Solari money, it’s important to explain how the Spice slider (the yellow and purple bar in the top left of the screen) works. At any time you can move this slider further yellow or further purple, which dictates what you do with your Spice harvest.
Having more to the yellow side means that you sell more to Choam, thereby making more Solari. Having the bar more to the purple side means you’re putting more into your stockpile, which can be traded and is also used for the Spice Tax.
You should adjust the slider constantly to fit your needs, and it’s generally a good idea to sell more Spice when you have a lot of time before the tax hits, then put more purple in when you get to the halfway point.
How to Get More Solari Money
Outside of selling Spice, there are a few smaller ways to earn extra Solari. The best way is by taking over villages in regions that have Rare Minerals. By researching “Structured Warehouses” in the orange research tab, you can unlock the Processing Plant. Building one of these in an area with Rare Minerals will give you +30 Solari income.
In the Espionage tab, you can assign Agents to infiltrate Choam; each one will give you +5 Solari income. Once you get to 10,000 Hegemony you can also construct the Choam Branch in your capital, which will boost the income of Agents assigned to Choam by 30%.
Finally, just like with Spice, you can search for extra Solari at Crashed Shuttles, or trade with other factions.
That covers everything you need to know about making extra Spice and Solari money in Dune Spice Wars. Makes sure to check our Dune Spice Wars hub for even more tips and guides, such as how to win matches through each of the three victory conditions.
