Sand
This is the
most widespread terrain on Arrakis. It slows down units and you can't build
structures on it. It's much easier to deform than rock. Subterranean units
can go underground and surface through it. Also, sandworms move through
it.
Rock
The rock
is the only terrain you can build on. Units move faster on it and it's
hard to deform. Sandworms can't move on it.
Ridges
You know
what the ridges are. They're cliffs that separate higher and lower rock,
rock and sand or higher and lower sand. Some ridges are destroyable.
Dunes
The dunes
are a special type of sand. They're basically just high sand "hills" with
very low "valleys" between them. Units are slowed down a lot by all the
climbing and descending.
Spice
The spice
is the reason of the war. It's the most valuable resource in the universe.
It comes in two formes: thick and thin spice. Thick spice is made of two
layers. After it's harvested, thin spice is left. After thin spice is harvested,
only sand is left. Spice can be found on dunes as well. Some spice fields
are buried. They can appear if sand is removed by a storm. Storms can also
bury existing spice fields.
Other
terrain
There are
two types of special terrain. First of all, there's the drum sand. If a
unit moves on drum sand, it will start to vibrate and all the worms on
the map will do anything to eat it. If the unit moves on rock, the effect
wears off. Drum sand looks just like normal sand. Once one of your units
moves on a patch of drum sand, that patch is "discovered" and it automatically
becomes a forbidden zone (if a part of it is covered by shroud, that part
isn't "discovered").
The second type is the spice
bloom. The spice blooms are just like in Dune2k, but they're created by
sandtrout.
Storms
There are
two types of storms. The coriolis storm and the sand storm. The coriolis
storm covers the whole map. Visibility is drastically reduced and the light
towers don't work. It gets very dark and the light gets dark orange. The
units move very slowly. They also lose health while they move. The best
thing to do is to order them to stand ground. The radar doesn't work and
air units can't take off. On the other hand, the sand storm is local, it
only covers a screen. It moves across the map. Air units can't move into
the storm, but the radar still works, even if it's in the storm. It has
the same visual effects as the coriolis storm. Units move very slowly through
it, but they don't lose health. Sand storms can also be caused by a long
and very large battle, but those are temporary (the normal ones only end
when they get out of the map).
Light
effects
Each
map has a certain time of day, just like in Tiberian Sun. The difference
is that night is much darker. You can barely see anything. During night
missions, you can build light towers (regardless of your house). They act
like the light posts of Tiberian Sun. Unlike the light posts in TS, the
towers are built by the players, they're not pre-existent. They don't have
to be build on concrete slabs and they can also be built on sand (but they
only exist in night missions). The light towers can't be sold or repaired
and they can be destroyed very easily (to prevent people from using them
as walls on the sand). A light tower's light is the color of the player
who built it.
Crates
In multiplayer games, you can select whether you want to have crates or
not. They're just like in Dune 2000 and Tiberian Sun (but they look more
like crates, unlike in TS). When one of your units picks up a crate, it
will have an effect that's chosen at random from these options: