Sandustry Materials Guide

Sandustry treats every dug pixel as a physical material with density, temperature, and interaction rules. Whether you are running the demo or planning an Early Access factory, understanding those materials is what separates a tidy gold line from a clogged pit of slag and steam. This hub collects the core resources you will touch in the first hours and the advanced ones that appear once you push deeper into the world.

The core refining loop

The backbone of Sandustry progression is a simple chain with messy physics attached. You mine Sand, combine it with Water to create Wet Sand, feed Wet Sand through a Shaker to extract Gold and Slag, then burn Slag into Burnt Slag for further processing on a Kinetic Slag Press. Community testing puts shaker gold yield around twenty to twenty-five percent per Wet Sand input, but your exact numbers depend on belt timing, pile depth, and how cleanly you separate outputs.

That loop sounds linear, yet sand physics makes it anything but. Wet Sand behaves differently from dry Sand when it lands on a diagonal shaker screen. Slag is heavier and tends to sink unless you route it deliberately. Gold is precious enough that even small losses to misaligned conveyors hurt your research budget. Read the dedicated Sand and Wet Sand and Gold and Slag pages before you scale automation.

Water, ice, and steam

Water is not just a crafting ingredient—it is a fluid that can flood tunnels, freeze into Ice, and boil into Steam when heated. Sand absorbs a limited amount of water before becoming Wet Sand, and the one-plus-one rule (one Sand plus one Water yields two Wet Sand) is one of the first ratios players memorize. Managing that conversion without drowning your dig site is a skill on its own.

Steam and ice show up once you bring heat and cold tools into the mix. The Water, Ice, and Steam guide covers capture strategies, pipe routing, and why steam pockets can stall a wet-sand line if you ignore them. Pair it with the Pipes and Pumps building guide when you are ready to move liquids at scale.

Redsand, fluxite, and deeper resources

Past the starter biome you will encounter RedSand, a denser sand variant tied to Fluxite production through Amethelis and Voidbloom. Flowers drop Amethelis petals; mixing petals with RedSand creates Voidbloom for the sole Flux Emanator, which grows Fluxite below its tile. Community spreadsheets often cite a rough ratio of two Sand to three Water to four RedSand producing about three Gold to eight Fluxite, though slag burning efficiency shifts those numbers. Lava sits between RedSand and Gold on density charts players share online, which matters when you filter mixed piles or use launchers to sort columns.

Soil and Fire appear in farming and hazard contexts—planter boxes need soil, while fire can spread through organic tiles if you are careless with a flamethrower. Read RedSand and Fluxite for mining priorities, Voidbloom and Amethelis for botanical density and mixing, and Material Ratios for community benchmarks.

How materials connect to buildings

Materials do not refine themselves. Shakers need a steady Wet Sand feed; Conveyors and Launchers keep piles moving; Filters split densities when manual sorting fails; Drones haul bulk when belts cannot reach. The Flux Emanator consumes Voidbloom and grows Fluxite below its footprint — only one per factory. The Buildings Hub maps each machine to the materials it handles best.

For step-by-step factory planning, cross-read the How to Get Gold guide and the Research Priority Tier List. Tool choices—flamethrower for slag, vacuum for relocation—are ranked on Tools and Weapons Priority.

Pick your next read

New players should start with Sand and Wet Sand, then Gold and Slag. If water is backing up, jump to Water, Ice, and Steam. Mid-game diggers should open RedSand and Fluxite, Voidbloom and Amethelis, and keep Material Ratios bookmarked when tuning throughput.