Sandustry Starter Factory Layout
A compact first factory: water, launcher, shakers, collectors, and a slag press lane.
A starter factory in Sandustry is not a megabase. It is a shape you can rebuild in twenty minutes after you learn why the first pit flooded. This layout is the one launch-week guides and Early Access streams keep converging on: a water body, a vertical launcher, a diagonal shaker bank, Collectors under the gold drops, and a long slag belt that ends at a Kinetic Slag Press. It works in the free Steam demo once Refining 1 and Logistics 1 are unlocked, and it scales into the 2026-08-13 Early Access build without a full teardown. Read Early Game Tips for habits; use this page for the floor plan.
What this layout is trying to do
You want four jobs to happen without you standing in the pit:
- Wet incoming Sand as it falls through water.
- Lift Wet Sand onto shakers.
- Bank Gold in Collectors.
- Park Slag on a belt that can be burned and pressed.
If any job is missing, the factory looks busy and the wallet stays poor. How to Get Gold explains the shaker math; Slag Processing explains why the belt must be long enough to burn.
Step 1 — Pick a lake next to Sandsoil
Do not start in a dry box and bucket water across the map. Find (or melt) a large water body beside diggable Sandsoil. Surface lakes teach the physics; underground puddles work if you can steam-rain more water later (Water, Ice, and Steam). Leave a wall between the lake and your future gold boxes so a misaimed vent does not drown the wallet.
Step 2 — Build a vertical launcher in the water
Research Logistics 1 for Launchers and Conveyor Belts. Place a launcher column so sand you throw into the lake becomes Wet Sand on the way down, then gets thrown up to the shaker deck. Hold Shift while placing if you need to skip an outlet (Build Modes). A launcher that dumps back into the lake is a fountain, not a factory — aim the top outlet at the shaker intake.
Step 3 — Land Wet Sand on diagonal Shakers
Refining 1 unlocks Shakers. Build them on a diagonal so gold falls through and slag continues. One or two shakers is enough for the first evening. Feed consistency beats raw count: a starved shaker is a decoration. Under each gold drop, place a Collector on a solid foundation (Collectors and Lights). If the box fills, gold overflows and Research stops incrementing even though the pit is yellow.
Step 4 — Belt slag away, do not pile it under the grate
Connect the shaker slag exit to a long conveyor. Length matters because you will walk this belt with a Flamethrower (Tools 1) until you have a heat source that burns residue for you. Community Early Access write-ups describe adding a thermal / heat segment on that belt so slag becomes Burnt Slag on the way to the press — treat the name as a layout idea, because building labels shift between demo hotfixes and EA patches. The job is the same: burn before the press, not after.
Step 5 — Kinetic Slag Press and a second Collector
Refining 2 unlocks the Kinetic Slag Press. Place it at the far end of the slag belt. Burnt Slag that falls through the press window yields more Gold and a Spore. Put a second Collector under the press gold catch. Leave three tiles of headroom under the press for spores so they do not cap the machine (Spores and Seeds). Filter spores off the gold box.
A compact bill of research
| Need | Research |
|---|---|
| Shakers | Refining 1 |
| Launcher + belts | Logistics 1 |
| Burn slag | Tools 1 (Flamethrower) |
| Press | Refining 2 |
| Sort mixed piles | Filters 1 |
| Move water without steam | Pipes 1 |
Do not buy Drones 1 to fix this layout. Drones multiply a working line; they do not invent wetting. Ranked order: Research Priority. Full node list: Research Tree.
Water refill without buckets
Early Access no longer expects you to live on the demo’s rocket-water tricks. Two legal loops:
- Steam rain — boil lake overflow or ice with the Flamethrower; steer steam so it condenses over the wetting pool.
- Snow burn — dig Frostbed or use a Cryoblaster to make Snow, then burn snow into Water (Snow, Firn, and Frostbed).
Keep snow off the lake if you are not ready for Ice. Snow plus water replaces the water with ice and can freeze the launcher well.
Heat, lava, and auto-burn
Once you reach a Lava Cave, lava can sit on a slag trench as an auto-burner. Official material notes also say lava is useful for flower auto-burn later. Do not pipe lava through the wetting lake. Relocate heat with the Scoria → Cinder → remelt chain on Lava, Scoria, and Cinder. Cryoblaster freezes lava into Scoria if a trench escapes.
What this layout is not
It is not a Fluxite greenhouse. Flowers, Amethelis, RedSand, Voidbloom, and the single Flux Emanator are a second wing. Build them after the gold line prints enough research to unlock Planter Boxes (Refining 3) and you have a RedSand belt. Flowers and Planters and How to Get Fluxite cover that hall. Mixing petals into the slag belt is how starter factories die.
Rebuild rules when it clogs
- Wet Sand in the residue pit — vacuum it out; it will not press.
- Gold beside the Collector — foundation missing or box full.
- Launcher eating its own output — Shift-skip the outlet or add a block hood.
- Ice in the lake — snow or cryo contact; melt a channel before you add more sand.
- Press silent — you are feeding raw slag, not Burnt Slag.
Use Ctrl hold to replace a tile without deleting the diagonal (Demo Hotfix 8). Use X and R from Keyboard Shortcuts when the rectangle tool would pave the lake.
Scaling the same shape
Duplicate sideways: more shakers on the same diagonal, more collectors, a wider slag belt. Do not stack a second lake on top of the first until pipes exist. When haul distance beats belt length, Drones earn their gold. When mixed RedSand appears, add Filters before the shaker intake.
Related pages
- Automation Basics — Belts and launchers beyond the starter pit.
- Production Ratio Helper — When a second shaker needs more water, not more buildings.
- Getting Started — Session checklist around this layout.
Copy the shape, not a screenshot of someone else’s late-game oasis. A small lake factory that banks gold will out-research a beautiful cave that dumps nuggets on dirt.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common Sandustry questions.
What buildings do I need for a Sandustry starter factory?
A water body, a Launcher (Logistics 1), diagonal Shakers (Refining 1), Collectors under gold drops, a slag conveyor, and later a Kinetic Slag Press (Refining 2). See the steps above.
Do I need pipes for the first factory?
No. Wet sand in the lake and steam-rain refill work before Pipes and Pumps. Buy pipes when buckets or steam steering become the bottleneck.
Where does slag go in the starter layout?
Off the shaker onto a long belt, burn to Burnt Slag, then into the Kinetic Slag Press. Do not store slag under the grate.
Can I add the Flux Emanator to this factory?
Not as part of the starter loop. Build a separate botanical wing after How to Get Fluxite. One emanator per factory, with clearance below.
Does this layout work in the free demo?
Yes for shakers, launchers, and collectors. The press and full tool set depend on demo research caps — compare Demo vs Early Access.