Sandustry Guides Hub

Sandustry is a pixel sand-physics factory game by Lantto Games and Hooded Horse. You dig Sand from Sandsoil, mix it with Water to make Wet Sand, run it across Shakers to extract Gold, then process leftover Slag for a second payout. Research spends that gold on conveyors, pipes, tools, drones, and deeper upgrades. These guides cover the full loop so you can build efficiently whether you are in the free Steam demo or preparing for Early Access on release date and platforms.

Start here

New players should read guides in roughly this order. Each page stands alone, but together they mirror how a real run unfolds: learn controls, set up income, then scale.

1. How to Play Sandustry — Core loop, camera movement, build modes, and what “good” looks like in the first hour.
2. Getting Started — Demo vs EA, first buildings, and a minimal gold line before you research logistics.
3. How to Get Gold — Shaker placement, Wet Sand flow, yield expectations, and Refining 1 timing.
4. Slag Processing — Burning slag, the Kinetic Slag Press, and why every shaker batch has hidden value.
5. Water Management — Pipes, pumps, vents, and keeping mixers fed without flooding your factory.
6. Automation Basics — Conveyors, launchers, filters, drones, and hands-off layouts.
7. Artifacts and Puzzles — Underground rewards, gated areas, and how discoveries feed your tech path.
8. Dig Deeper — Vertical expansion, long supply lines, and factory designs that survive depth.
9. How to Get Fluxite — Flowers, Amethelis, Voidbloom, and the single Flux Emanator that grows upgrade currency below its tile.
10. Flowers and Planters — Planter boxes, Soil, watering, Hydro Sponge Grabber rules, and botanical overflow storage.

Sandustry overview and factory gameplay

Reference pages to keep open

Guides explain how; these hubs explain what:

• Materials — Sand, Wet Sand, Gold, Slag, Burnt Slag, and how they transform.
• Buildings — Shakers, mixers, presses, logistics blocks, and research gates.
• Research Priority Tier List — When to buy Refining, Logistics, Filters, Pipes, Tools, and Drones.
• Keyboard Shortcuts — Build/remove keys, descend, marquee select, launcher skip.
• Production Ratio Helper — Balance dig rate, water, shakers, and slag burn for steady output.

The factory loop in one paragraph

You mine Sand from Sandsoil terrain, combine it with Water to create Wet Sand, and drop the mixture onto Shakers built on a diagonal so Gold (roughly 20–25% chance per pass) falls through while Slag continues downstream. Burn Slag with a Flamethrower or Lava to produce Burnt Slag, then feed Burnt Slag into a Kinetic Slag Press for additional gold. Mid-game, Flowers drop Amethelis petals; mix Amethelis with RedSand to form Voidbloom, feed Voidbloom to the sole Flux Emanator, and harvest Fluxite growing below for upgrade currency alongside Gold research spending. Gold funds Research — Refining 1 unlocks Shakers, Logistics 1 unlocks conveyors and launchers, Filters and Pipes/Pumps/Vents handle sorting and fluids, Refining 2 unlocks the Slag Press, and further branches cover guns, tools (Flamethrower, Vacuum, Cryoblaster, Grappling Hook), lights, drones, and planter boxes. Single-player only; modding is supported through Fluxloader.

Who these guides are for

Demo players can validate the shaker loop and practice diagonal builds before EA launches 2026-08-13 on Steam, GOG, Microsoft Store, and PC Game Pass. Early Access players will use the same fundamentals but invest earlier in logistics and slag recovery. Min-max builders should pair automation guides with the production ratio tool and research tier list so gold is not wasted on redundant tech.

Tips that appear across multiple guides

• Build Shakers diagonally so gold separates cleanly; flat spam wastes throughput.
• Unlock Logistics 1 as soon as your manual hauling becomes the bottleneck — not before you have stable Wet Sand.
• Never discard Slag; the press line is often your second-largest gold source.
• Use S to descend and R to toggle linear vs rectangular build; X removes, Shift enables marquee and launcher-outlet skip.
• When in doubt, check materials and buildings for exact inputs and outputs before redesigning a floor.

Pick a guide above and follow its internal links — sibling pages cross-reference each other so you can jump to slag, water, or automation mid-run without losing context.