Sandustry Materials

The official wiki gives each material its own page. That is the right shape for looking one thing up and the wrong shape for the question you usually have, which is what a pixel you are holding turns into and what has to happen for it to get there.

So read a row left to right and it is a sentence: this comes from that, this changes it, this is what you get.

Every material

Names link to their own official page, so any single row can be checked at the source.

One caution about reading a row as a flow. The Processed by column lists everything the official infobox records as acting on that material, which is not always the thing that produces the value in the next column. Florinol is the case to know: its processors are the Florinol Battery and the Synthesizer, but only the Synthesizer makes Aurixite. The Battery generates Energy, and the official Energy page says Florinol Official“is not expended in the process, and can therefore be reused indefinitely” — so that row is two separate uses sharing one column, not one chain.

Materials are grouped by matter type rather than by density, because matter type is what decides how a pixel behaves in front of a machine. Solids and Slushies sort at a Filter; Liquids and Gases pass straight through it; Wisps drift on the way down, which is why the Filter Setup Finder will not offer them. If you want the same materials ordered by weight instead, that table is on the Filters page.

Fire, Water and Snow change a material without being asked

Everything else in the Processed by column is something you built and aimed at a material on purpose. These three happen in transit.

Water changes exactly two materials: Sand and Seed. They become Wet Sand and Wet Seed. That is the whole set — the other thirty-two are unaffected by water landing on them.

That small number is worth knowing, because those two transformations are the entire cause of the most common failure in the game. A pixel that changes while it is passing through a Filter stops dead and has to be dug out by hand, and Sand and Seed are the only pixels that can do it. Why your Filter jammed covers the fix, which is upstream every time.

Fire changes six: Cinder, Dry Amethelis, Flower, Residue, Snow and Water. Cinder becomes Lava, Dry Amethelis releases Florin, Residue burns down to Burnt Residue, and Snow becomes Water.

Snow changes one: Water, into Ice. It is the third row in the Processed by column that is a material rather than a machine, and the cold half of a loop the heat page follows all the way round.

The last two on that list are the ones that look like a mistake and are not. Water is marked Burnable, and so is Snow. In this game the field means fire changes it, not it is fuel: Water’s own page lists Fire as one of the things that processes it and Steam as what comes out. Heating water is how you move it, which is the whole Cryoblaster route to a water supply.

Flower is the exception to the pattern. Its page marks it Burnable but leaves Processed By blank, so what burning one gives you is not written down anywhere official. Its listed products — Amethelis and Gold — come from growing it in a Planter Box, not from setting it alight.

What a Launcher will throw

Twenty of the thirty-four. The rule underneath the list is simple: a Launcher throws things that hold their shape.

• Every Solid except two, both of which are worth knowing. Auralite is the one genuine surprise — an ordinary solid the Launcher refuses. Fluxite is less surprising once you notice it is terrain as much as it is a material.
• All four Slushies — Wet Sand, Wet Seed, Residue and Voidbloom ride fine.
• All four Wisps, including Snow. Drifting on the way down does not stop a Launcher from throwing it up.
• No Liquid and no Gas. Not one of the nine. Water, Lava and Steam all need belts, drops and pressure instead.

What the official wiki leaves blank

Three materials have no matter type recorded — Flower, Void Juice and Void Seed. The field is empty on their pages, so this table shows a dash and the Filter Setup Finder does not offer them. Guessing would be the easy thing to do and would produce advice with nothing behind it.

Four have no density. Flower’s Density field is empty. Fluxite carries the terrain infobox, which has no density field at all. Liquid Gold and Void Juice are the interesting pair: their pages record a range rather than a value — 100<?<150 and 50<?<75 — which pins down where each one sits in a pile without giving a number to put in a column.

Terrain is the other half

This page covers the 34 materials you make, move and process. The other nineteen entries in the wiki’s materials category are terrain — the things you dig through — and they are on the map and terrain page with the fields that actually apply to them: hit points, what tool breaks them, and what they yield.

Fluxite is on both, because it is both.

Between the two tables, every one of the 53 entries the official wiki lists is covered.

Related

• Sandustry Filters Explained — the density table, and why filters jam
• Sandustry Filter Setup Finder — pick two materials, get the configuration
• Sandustry Production Chains — the same materials as routes to Gold
• Sandustry Maps and Terrain — the nineteen you dig rather than make
• Sandustry Void Materials — the Void line in full