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Sandustry Mods

Two separate ecosystems — the official Steam Workshop and the community Fluxloader. Here is what each one is for and which you actually want.

GamePrimer EditorialUpdated Verified

There are two ecosystems. The Steam Workshop is first-party — subscribe and the mod installs, no tools needed. Fluxloader is a separate community loader with its own much larger catalogue, including custom maps, skins and texture packs. Most people want the Workshop; you want Fluxloader when you want maps.

Steam Workshop — the official route

Sandustry ships with Workshop support, so installing a mod is a subscribe button. No loader, no file copying, no third-party downloads.

The Workshop went live with the game. A sample of what is there:

Mod By What it does
Multiple Action Bars ZyniX More hotbars on screen at once
Flow Meter uolkx Throughput readouts for your lines
Power Monitor uolkx Watch energy generation and draw
Mod Inspector uolkx See what your installed mods are doing
Steam Pipes Kingcub Pipe steam around
Vertical Conveyor Portal Kingcub Vertical version of the conveyor portal
Ultrawide Hor+ SuperMan4eg Proper ultrawide support

How much of that list is instrumentation is telling — flow meters, power monitors, inspectors. That is what players reach for once a factory outgrows eyeballing it, and it maps neatly onto where the base game currently leaves a gap.

One of the Workshop items, Drill Test, is published by lantto — the developer. Modding here is not merely tolerated.

Fluxloader — the community loader

Fluxloader is a separate, unofficial mod loader with its own browser and a catalogue well past a hundred mods. It is not affiliated with Lantto Games or Hooded Horse.

  • Current version: 2.5.5, published on the project’s GitHub releases page
  • Download it from GitHub or the project site — nowhere else
  • Mods declare versioned dependencies, so most of them also pull in Core Lib (currently 3.1.3), maintained by the Fluxloader team

What it has that the Workshop does not, at least so far, is breadth: custom maps, player skins, texture packs, quality-of-life patches, speedrunning timers, and an experimental multiplayer mod.

Notable entries:

Mod Version What it is
Core Lib 3.1.3 The dependency almost everything else needs
Custom Map Loader 4.1.6 Loads community maps
Texture Pack Loader 2.2.1 Loads texture packs
Skin Loader 2.0.1 Loads player skins
Some QoL 0.5.11 Assorted quality-of-life fixes
Creative Mode 1.1.3 Unlimited building
Sandustry Together 0.5.0 Experimental online co-op

Sandustry Together, and reading a version number

Online co-op exists, in the sense that a 0.5.0 experimental mod exists. Its own author is blunt about the state of it: expect bugs, desyncs and crashes, and Community“I can’t guarantee no corruption of saves”.

That is the right way to read every version number on this page. A 4.1.6 loader has been through a lot of releases; a 0.5.0 multiplayer mod rewrites how your world is saved and has not. Back up before you install either, and especially the second.

Custom maps

Custom maps are the biggest thing Fluxloader offers that the Workshop currently does not, and they are the reason most people install it.

You need the Custom Map Loader (4.1.6, by Electric131), and then any of the maps in the catalogue — there are dozens, spanning full terrain overhauls, puzzle layouts, and challenge maps like InfiniMines, Volcanic Sands and Procedural Challenge.

Maps are ordinary Fluxloader mods, so they install the same way and declare the same dependencies. A map that will not load is nearly always a Core Lib version mismatch rather than a broken map.

We do not host map files, and we never will. Everything above points at the Workshop, at Fluxloader, or at a creator’s own page.

After every patch

Sandustry is in Early Access and patching often. Mods are the first thing to break when the game underneath them changes.

  • After any update, check your mods before you blame the game. A crash that started right after a patch, on a modded save, is a mod incompatibility until proven otherwise.
  • Back up your saves before updating. Copy %APPDATA%\sandustry\saves somewhere safe — see where Sandustry saves your game.
  • Test with mods disabled before reporting a bug. The developers cannot debug someone else’s mod, and a report from a modded save usually ends there.
  • Treat anything outside the Workshop as an ordinary download. Know who made it, and keep a backup you are willing to lose.

Sources

All of Sandustry

How we work

  • First-hand tested where it matters
  • Official-confirmed vs community-reported, always labeled
  • No piracy terms, no made-up numbers

Read our methodology