Sandustry Beginner Guide — Your First Factory

Welcome to the planet, Prospector. This guide walks you through Sandustry’s opening hours — from your first handful of wet-sand gold to a production line that runs without you. Everything below reflects the Early Access release (v0.5.4, August 2026).

The Core Gameplay Loop

Sandustry is a factory automation sandbox where every pixel is a simulated material. Sand falls, water flows, steam rises, ice melts — and your job is to turn that physics into industry:

1. Dig sand and dirt with your shovel.
2. Wet the sand by dropping it into water.
3. Sift wet sand in a Shaker to extract gold (and residue).
4. Collect the gold in a Collector box.
5. Spend gold on Research to unlock better tools and buildings.
6. Automate each step so the loop runs while you explore.

Gold is the currency for all Research, so everything in the early game serves one goal: more gold per minute.

Understanding the Interface

• Currencies (top-left): Gold (research), Fluxite (upgrades — the purple crystals), and Energy (powers late-game structures).
• Objectives: Current mission goals; a yellow arrow on the minimap points the way.
• Minimap: See beyond your screen and spot caves, water, and ruins.
• Hotbar: Ten hotbars with ten slots each — press Alt + number or hold Alt + mouse wheel to switch between them.
• Shortcuts: C selects a structure, Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V copy/paste buildings, and holding Ctrl while placing replaces an existing structure (great for upgrading belt tiers without redesigning).

Your First Gold: Wet Sand and a Shaker

Before you have logistics, make gold by hand:

1. Dig a trench next to a body of water.
2. Throw dry sand into the water to make wet sand.
3. Drop wet sand onto a Shaker (unlocked with your first research).
4. Gold and residue fall out — place a Collector box underneath to store the gold.

The tutorial’s manual sand-shaking gets disabled once you unlock levitation, so build the Shaker setup early.

The First Automated Line

The classic early-game factory connects four buildings around a body of water:

• A Launcher placed vertically next to the water — everything thrown in at the bottom gets flung out at the top, and the sand gets wet on the way up.
• A row of Shakers at the launcher’s exit, sifting the wet sand.
• A Collector under the shakers catching the gold.
• A Conveyor carrying the residue away from the shakers.

Once you unlock the Flamethrower and Kinetic Press, extend the line: burn the residue on the belt, then press the burnt residue into a second stream of gold. A Thermal Buffer on the belt burns residue automatically.

Conveyor and Launcher Basics

• Conveyor belts are horizontal only; drag direction sets the belt direction.
• Launchers can be vertical or diagonal; resources always exit from the highest point of the shaft.
• Mark 2 versions (unlocked later in the tech tree) move materials much faster.

Filters: Your Best Friend

Mixed piles are inevitable. Filters have two modes:

• Allow — only the selected resource falls through (e.g. allow only gold).
• Block — everything except the selected resource falls through.

Basic filters handle one solid resource at a time. To capture two resources, stack two filters. Advanced Filters (unlocked later) also handle liquids and gases. When a busy line needs isolating, filter blocks are the answer.

Fluids: Pumps, Pipes, and Vents

Any fluid except lava moves through Pump → Pipes → Liquid Vent, as long as the pump sits at or below the fluid level and the vent sits above it. One pipeline can carry multiple fluids, but a vent always releases whichever liquid is closest — so keep fluid lines separate.

Water is the constant bottleneck of the early game. Boil it with the flamethrower and guide the steam into a walled tank so it condenses back to water where you want it, instead of raining down over your factory.

Research, Factory Levels, and Upgrades

• Research is bought with Gold and gated behind your Factory Level — tiered access granted for hitting performance milestones.
• Upgrades improve inventory items (Grabber, Flamethrower, drones) and cost Fluxite.
• Augments from artifacts boost your utility tools and your own movement.

Strong early upgrade picks: Material Scanner (hover a resource to see how to refine it), Grabber capacity, and digging speed. Unlock hover early — movement is everything.

Early Tips and Tricks

• Copy-paste repeated structures (C, then Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V) instead of rebuilding each one.
• Capture creatures with the Corraller — some (like Lumlings) generate resources such as a steady water supply.
• If a resource is hard to move, change its state of matter first (freeze, melt, condense), move it, then convert it back.
• Ancient ruins are often pre-shaped layouts you can build your factory into.
• Stuck in an artifact puzzle? Use the unstuck command from the pause menu — and come back later with better tools.

Where to Go Next

Once gold is flowing and research is ticking, dig downward: caves hide Fluxite, lava, ice, creatures, and the ancient structures that guard artifacts. Check the Automation guides for full production-chain layouts and the Materials & Resources guides for every material’s refining path.