Gold and Slag in Sandustry

Gold is Sandustry’s primary research currency in the demo and Early Access roadmap. Slag is the dense byproduct every shaker creates alongside gold. Ignoring slag blocks expansion—piles bury conveyors, contaminate wet sand pools, and stall burn lines needed for Burnt Slag and Kinetic Slag Press recipes.

Shaker output and yield

Feed Wet Sand into a Shaker on a diagonal screen. Community testing consistently reports gold yields around twenty to twenty-five percent of Wet Sand input, with the remainder exiting as Slag. Exact numbers swing with feed rate, screen length, and whether slag is cleared immediately or allowed to backlog on the output tile.

Gold is lighter than Slag on shared density charts, so poorly angled outputs may let slag bury gold before belts pick it up. Separate output lanes early: one belt or chute for gold to a storage chest near your research bench, one for slag toward a burner or filter overflow. Compare your measured yield against Material Ratios when tuning.

Slag properties and routing

Slag sinks through Sand and Wet Sand in mixed columns, which helps passive sorting but hurts if you dump shaker output onto a mixed pile. Route slag horizontally with Conveyors before it falls into a shared pit. Filters can pull slag from accidental sand mixes once you unlock the right tiers.

Unburned slag still occupies space and can block Fire spread in some layouts—relevant when you place flamethrower burn zones near logistics hubs. The dedicated Slag Processing guide walks through safe burner placement and backlog buffers.

Burning Slag into Burnt Slag

Apply sustained heat—typically a Flamethrower or fire tile—to convert Slag into Burnt Slag. Burning is not instant; throughput depends on how much slag sits in the flame zone per tick and whether new slag keeps arriving. Under-fed burners idle; over-fed burners create Burnt Slag faster than your press accepts it.

Build a slag buffer chest or wide holding pad between shaker output and the burner. That buffer absorbs shaker spikes while you manually research or expand belts. Once Burnt Slag exists, feed a Kinetic Slag Press for advanced material outputs tied to mid-game research (details evolve in Early Access patches—cross-check Updates Hub after major builds).

Gold chest and research bench placement

Keep your first Gold storage within a few tiles of where you open the research menu—walking time is invisible lost income in the demo. A single chest per shaker bank is enough early on; split chests when slag haulers start crossing gold paths. Never let gold share a drop chute with Slag unless a Filter sits between them; slag burying gold is the most common reason research feels slower than shaker yield predicts.

Measuring yield without spreadsheets

Watch one shaker output tile for sixty seconds: count gold pixels reaching the chest versus wet sand entering. If gold looks sparse but wet sand flow seems fine, slag is probably blocking the grate—clear burn lanes before tuning mine rates. This quick eye test beats guessing from inventory totals when belts merge multiple outputs.

When slag outpaces burn capacity

If slag piles grow faster than your flamethrower lane converts them, pause shaker expansion until burn throughput catches up. Adding shakers without burn capacity trades one backlog for another and can block conveyor merges entirely. The Production Ratio Helper slag table is the quick sanity check before you spend gold on Refining 2.

Spending gold wisely

Gold spent on research unlocks Conveyors and Launchers, Filters, and drone tech. The Research Priority Tier List ranks Refining 1 and Logistics 1 ahead of cosmetic upgrades. Hoarding gold while slag fills your base trades one bottleneck for another.

Connecting back to sand and water

Gold production still depends on Sand and Wet Sand ratios and Water, Ice, and Steam stability. If gold dips but sand input looks fine, inspect wetting pools first—partially wet piles reduce effective Wet Sand throughput even when raw sand counts look healthy.

Return to the Materials Hub for redsand and fluxite chains, or open Buildings Hub to upgrade the shaker line itself.