Spice Fields
Spice Fields are densely packed areas of Spice Sand that appear semi-randomly on open sand in Hagga Basin and the Deep Desert as the result of an explosive spice blow.
Spice Fields are the main source of harvesting Spice Sand for later refinement into Spice Melange. These fields only appear in areas where sandworms patrol, making the gathering of spice a dangerous activity.
Formation
A spice blow is a phenomenon which occurs in stages. The first stage appears as an area of pink bubbling sand that resembles boiling water. After an incubation period, this area erupts producing a vision obscuring airborne mushroom cloud, an audible explosion and the spice field itself. The field can be harvested as soon as it appears but can be difficult to easily see at first. Immediately after the explosion, a high-energy gas spout can be observed at the center of the field. This spout fades after a short time. The mushroom cloud also slowly fades before completely disappearing leaving the spice field fully visible.
Gathering Methods
There are three methods of gathering Spice Sand from a spice field:
- Gathering by hand
- Using one of the handheld Static Compactors
- Operating a Sandcrawler
Hand gathering requires no tools and generates a small amount of worm threat but is very slow resulting in the least amount of sand gathered before attracting the sand worm.
Using a static compactor allows for the gathering of spice into piles which can be retreived after a short compaction time. This method is more efficient than hand gathering and can be made more efficient with higher tier compaction tools (ie. greater compaction area or reduced worm threat generation).
The most efficient method of gathering spice sand is to use the Sandcrawler vehicle, which can vaccuum a wide area of spice sand into its inventory by driving over the area of the spice field.
While not strictly necessary, vehicles are typically used in conjuntion with hand gathering and static compactor gathering to quickly avoid the sandworm in-between gathering sessions. Sandcrawlers are almost exclusively used with a carrier ornithopter, due to their low top speed and the usual distance between spice fields and safe ground.
Types of Spice Fields
Small
Small spice fields can occur in both Hagga Basin and the Deep Desert. In Hagga Basin this includes the open sand areas of Eastern Vermillius Gap, Western Vermillius Gap, Mysa Tarill, and Sheol regions. In the Deep Desert, small spice fields are found scattered throughout the region except for the southern most A-row and the northen most I-row.
Medium
Medium spice fields can occur starting in the D-row of the Deep Desert and all sectors to the north.
Large
The large spice field can occur starting in F-row of the Deep Desert and all sectors to the north. While there are multiple spawn locations for the large field, only one can be active at a time. Unlike smaller fields, the spawn area of a large spice field is a crater which is visible at all times even when inactive.