Sandustry Production Chains
Every step from sand to gold, with the actual yields — including the two steps most players skip that triple what a pile of sand is worth.
GamePrimer EditorialUpdated Verified
Stopping at the Shaker gets you 1 Gold per 2 Sand. Burning the residue, pressing it, and planting the seeds that come out gets you 3 Gold per 2 Sand from the same input — three times the yield, for two research unlocks.
Materials with a dotted underline expand to show where they come from and what they become.
The currency every research unlock is priced in.
- Step 1
+→
1 Sand + 1 Water makes 2 Wet Sand
No building needed — the two pixels only have to touch.
OfficialSource
- Step 2Shaker
→+
Always 1 Residue, plus a 1-in-4 chance of 1 Gold
Gold drops out of the bottom. Residue stays on top and is pushed off very slowly, so run Shakers in a downward staircase.
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- Step 3Fire
→
25% chance per pixel; the rest burns away with no output
Lava, a Flamethrower, a Pyro Dispenser or a Burner Belt all work. A big enough pile keeps burning once lit.
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- Step 4Kinetic Press
→+Seed
1 Burnt Residue always gives 1 Gold and 1 Seed
Must fall from at least 25 blocks up, or it just sits on top and blocks the press.
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- Step 5
Seed+→Wet Seed
1 Seed + 1 Water makes 1 Wet Seed
The water is absorbed rather than doubling the output, unlike sand.
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- Step 6Planter Box
Wet Seed→+Amethelis
Each Flower head holds 1 Gold and 4 Amethelis
Destroy the grown Flower with a weapon or fire to drop its contents.
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What the whole chain is worth
Two different answers, both correct, depending on how far you process. Running Wet Sand through a Shaker and stopping there averages 1 Gold per 2 Sand. Carrying the Residue all the way through burning, the Kinetic Press and Flowers averages 3 Gold per 2 Sand.
- Shaker only2 Sand : 1 Gold
- Through the Kinetic Press1 Sand : 1 Gold
- Full chain, including Flowers2 Sand : 3 Gold
These are averages, not guarantees. Two of the three steps are probabilistic (the Shaker's 1-in-4 Gold roll and the 25% burn survival), so a short run can land well above or below the ratio; it only holds over volume.
Upgrades for tools, weapons and drones.
- Step 1
Void Petals+Redsand→
Combining the two produces Voidbloom
Void Petals come from the Void Rift line; this is the late-game half of the tree.
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- Step 2Flux Emanator
→
1 Voidbloom always converts to 1 Fluxite
Voidbloom must land on the top face; Fluxite grows outward in a circle from the bottom. Harvest it or the growth stalls and performance suffers.
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Feedstock for every wet-sand line you will ever build.
- Step 1
Surface lakes+Underground deposits→
Finite, and the reason people run out mid-game
Fine to start on, not something to build a factory around.
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- Step 3Cryoblaster
Energy→Snow
Unlimited — the Cryoblaster produces Snow indefinitely
This is the start of the renewable loop, not the end of it. The Cryoblaster makes Snow; it does not make water directly.
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- Step 4Fire
Snow→
Heating Snow or Water produces Steam
A Flamethrower or the Rocket Launcher's napalm upgrade will do it.
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- Step 5
→
Steam that reaches the sky condenses and falls as rain
Steam rises until it meets a ceiling and pools there. Given a clear path it reaches the sky and rains back down. Steam with nowhere to rise condenses after 30 seconds and rains anyway. Use Blocks to steer where it falls.
OfficialSource
Sand
Solid · density 150- Comes from
- Dirt
- Processed by
- Water
- Turns into
- Wet Sand
Steps it appears in
- Gold: Sand + Water → Wet Sand
Water
Liquid · density 100- Comes from
- Ice, Steam
- Processed by
- Fire, Snow
- Turns into
- Steam, Ice
Steps it appears in
- Gold: Sand + Water → Wet Sand
- Gold: Seed + Water → Wet Seed
- Water: Surface lakes + Underground deposits → Water
- Water: Ice → Water
- Water: Steam → Water
Wet Sand
Slushy · density 150- Comes from
- Sand
- Processed by
- Shakers
- Turns into
- Gold, Residue
Steps it appears in
- Gold: Sand + Water → Wet Sand
- Gold: Wet Sand → Residue + Gold
Residue
Slushy · density 50- Comes from
- Wet Sand
- Processed by
- Fire
- Turns into
- Burnt Residue
Must be burned, typically with Lava or a Flamethrower. Each pixel that meets Fire has a 25% chance of becoming Burnt Residue and is otherwise destroyed with no output.
Steps it appears in
- Gold: Wet Sand → Residue + Gold
- Gold: Residue → Burnt Residue
Gold
Solid · density 300- Comes from
- Shaker, Kinetic Press, Flower
- Processed by
- Smelter
- Turns into
- —
The heaviest pixel in the game, so it always falls to the bottom of a pile — which is what makes it easy to filter out. Must be stored in Collector blocks to count towards your bank.
Steps it appears in
- Gold: Wet Sand → Residue + Gold
- Gold: Burnt Residue → Gold + Seed
- Gold: Wet Seed → Gold + Amethelis
Burnt Residue
Solid · density 50- Comes from
- Residue
- Processed by
- Kinetic Press
- Turns into
- Gold, Seed
Must be dropped onto a Kinetic Press from at least 25 blocks up to pass through and produce its outputs.
Steps it appears in
- Gold: Residue → Burnt Residue
- Gold: Burnt Residue → Gold + Seed
Voidbloom
Slushy · density 30- Comes from
- Combining Void Petals and Redsand
- Processed by
- Flux Emanator
- Turns into
- Fluxite
Steps it appears in
- Fluxite: Void Petals + Redsand → Voidbloom
- Fluxite: Voidbloom → Fluxite
Fluxite
Solid · density Medium- Comes from
- Natural Generation, Flux Emanator
- Processed by
- Digging
- Turns into
- —
Steps it appears in
- Fluxite: Voidbloom → Fluxite
Steam
Gas · density 0- Comes from
- Heating Water or Snow
- Processed by
- Reaching the sky
- Turns into
- Water
Rises until it meets a ceiling and pools there, the way water pools on a floor. Reaching the sky condenses it back into water, which falls as rain. Steam that cannot find anywhere to rise condenses after 30 seconds and rains anyway.
Steps it appears in
- Water: Snow → Steam
- Water: Steam → Water
Why the residue matters more than the gold
The Shaker is where everyone starts, and it is the least productive part of the chain.
Every wet sand pixel gives you one residue guaranteed, and gold only one time in four. So the residue coming off your Shakers is not waste — it is the majority of what you produced, and it carries the same gold you were mining for, one processing step later.
Burning residue only converts a quarter of it. Then the Kinetic Press turns every surviving pixel into gold and a seed, and those seeds grow into flowers holding another gold each. Two lossy steps followed by two lossless ones, which is why the total comes out ahead.
Concretely, one sand pixel averages:
- 0.5 Gold from the Shaker
- 0.5 Gold from the Kinetic Press
- 0.5 Gold from the flower its seed grows into
Three equal thirds. Skip the second half of the chain and you are throwing away two of them.
The two unlocks that pay for themselves
To run the full chain you need the Kinetic Press (500 Gold) and the Planter Box (2,000 Gold). Together that is 2,500 Gold to triple the gold value of every grain of sand you already process — see the Research Planner for where they sit.
Almost nothing else in the tree changes your economics that much. Most unlocks let you do something new; these two make everything you already do worth three times as much.
Things that will cost you throughput
- The Kinetic Press needs a 25-block drop. Anything less and the burnt residue lands on top and blocks the press. This is a build-height requirement, not a suggestion.
- Shakers push residue very slowly. Build them in a downward staircase so wet sand, which is denser, settles onto each one while residue floats up and flows onward. A flat row clogs.
- The Kinetic Press has no built-in conveyor. A row of angled Launchers along the top clears anything that lands wrong without disturbing what is falling correctly.
- The Flux Emanator stalls if you do not harvest it. Fluxite grows outward in a circle; no room to grow means no more conversion, and a large ball hurts performance.
Related
- Research Planner — the cost of the Kinetic Press and Planter Box
- Filter Setup Finder — sorting the outputs once the chain is running
- Sandustry Beginner Guide — the first loop, before any of this
