Sandustry can look intimidating because there’s a lot going on once your factory starts expanding. You’re collecting resources, refining materials, moving huge amounts of stuff around, unlocking technology, dealing with liquids and gases, discovering strange ruins, and eventually building production chains that make your early setup look tiny.
The good news is that the game doesn’t expect you to understand everything immediately.
Your first factory is basically a learning experience. You’ll gradually figure out what each resource does, how to move it efficiently, and how different materials can be transformed into something completely different. Once those systems click, building larger production lines becomes much more satisfying.
This Sandustry Beginner Guide covers the important basics, from understanding the interface and moving resources to research, upgrades, production chains, creatures, artifacts, and a few tricks that can save you a lot of rebuilding later.
Sandustry Beginner Guide – Unlock Technology, Minimap
The basic loop of Sandustry is pretty straightforward:
Gather resources → refine them → move them → unlock technology → build better production chains → explore further.
You’ll begin with relatively simple resources and gradually turn your small operation into a much more complicated industrial network.
One of the first things you’ll notice is that you aren’t restricted to simply building a factory in one convenient location. The planet is large, contains different biomes, and has natural resources, ruins, wildlife, and other points of interest scattered around it.
Don’t feel pressured to immediately build everywhere.
A compact factory that’s easy to understand is much more useful early on than a massive spaghetti network that you can’t figure out later.
Understanding the Sandustry Interface
There are quite a few things on the screen, but most of them become familiar very quickly.
Currencies
You’ll encounter several different currencies and resources used for progression.
Gold is one of the most important early resources. It’s used to unlock Research and comes from refining certain materials.
Fluxite is used for Upgrades that improve your inventory tools and abilities. You can find it naturally or produce it through certain processes.
Energy becomes important later when you start working with power-hungry structures. You’ll produce it through specific refining and production chains.
Don’t confuse these with ordinary factory resources. They each have a different role in progression.
Objectives
Your current objectives appear on the interface and can help point you toward your next major goal.
If you’re unsure where to go, check the objective marker.
There’s also a yellow arrow on the minimap that helps guide you toward your current objective.
Minimap
The minimap gives you a wider view of the surrounding area than your normal camera.
It’s particularly useful once you start exploring farther from your main factory because it helps you keep track of your surroundings without constantly opening the larger map or wandering around blindly.
Hotbars
You get 10 hotbars, and each hotbar contains 10 slots.
That gives you a lot of room for building structures, inventory items, tools, and other things you use regularly.
You can quickly switch between hotbars using:
Alt + Hotbar Number
You can also hold Alt + Mouse Scroll to move between hotbars.
Once you have a lot of structures unlocked, this becomes incredibly useful.
Logistics: How to Move Resources Around
Eventually, manually carrying resources around your factory becomes completely impractical.
That’s where the logistics system comes in.
Your factory will rely heavily on:
- Conveyors
- Launchers
- Filters
- Pumps
- Pipes
- Liquid Vents
The nice thing is that these logistics structures don’t require power to operate. They’ll continue working as long as there’s something available for them to move.
Conveyor Belts
Conveyor Belts are your basic method for moving solid resources.
They’re ideal for materials such as:
- Sand
- Residue
- Cinder
- Seeds
- Amethelis
- Gold
- Other solid resources
Conveyors can only be placed horizontally.
The direction of the belt depends on the direction you drag when placing it.
That sounds like a tiny detail, but it’s worth getting used to early because incorrect belt directions can make an otherwise simple factory surprisingly frustrating.
Launchers
Launchers are another way to move solid resources, but instead of carrying them along a belt, they throw resources.
They can be positioned vertically or diagonally.
The highest point of the launcher shaft is where the resource will be thrown from, while the direction you drag determines which direction the material is launched.
Once you unlock Mark 2 Conveyors and Launchers, your logistics systems become considerably faster.
If you already have a large factory, this is also where the replace function becomes extremely useful because you can upgrade existing infrastructure without rebuilding everything manually.
How Filters Work
Filters become extremely important once your factory starts producing several resources on the same line.
Imagine you’ve got a conveyor carrying five different materials, but you only want Gold to go toward one machine.
That’s exactly what a filter is for.
Filters have two basic modes:
Allow
Only the selected resource passes through.
Block
Everything except the selected resource passes through.
For example, if you select Allow Gold, only Gold continues through that filter.
If you select Block Redsand, everything except Redsand continues through.
One Important Filter Limitation
Basic Filters only work with one selected solid resource at a time.
So you can’t configure one basic filter to:
Allow Redsand AND Moonhop.
Instead, you’ll need multiple filters to separate different materials.
Once you unlock Advanced Filters, things become much more flexible.
Advanced Filters can work with:
- Solids
- Liquids
- Gases
They still use the Allow/Block system, but they give you considerably more control over complicated production lines.
Moving Liquids Around Your Factory
Liquids work differently from solid resources.
For regular fluids, you’ll generally use:
Pump → Pipes → Liquid Vent
The pump acts as your input.
The pipes transport the liquid.
The Liquid Vent releases it at the destination.
As long as the fluid is at or above the level of the pump and hasn’t reached the level of the Liquid Vent, the fluid can continue moving through the system.
There’s one important warning here: don’t casually mix different liquid lines together.
A single pipeline can transport multiple fluid types, but the Liquid Vent doesn’t let you choose which liquid comes out.
It prioritizes whichever liquid is closest.
So if you’re building a factory that uses multiple fluids, separate your pipelines whenever possible. Future-you will be very grateful.
Getting Into Production and Refining
This is where Sandustry really starts becoming a factory game rather than simply a resource-gathering game.
Many resources aren’t immediately useful in their raw form.
Instead, you need to process them through several stages.
One resource might become a by-product, which becomes the input for another machine, which produces another resource that feeds yet another process.
This chain-based design is one of the most important things to understand early.
Before you throw a resource away because you don’t currently need it, check whether it becomes useful later.
Use the Material Scanner
One of the most useful early upgrades for your Grabber is the Material Scanner.
It lets you hover over a resource and see information about how that material can be used or refined.
If you’re ever staring at an unfamiliar material thinking:
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Use the scanner.
It can save you from a lot of unnecessary experimentation.
How Gold Production Works
Gold is particularly important because it is required for Research.
There are three important structures involved in Gold production:
- Shaker
- Kinetic Press
- Planter Box
The interesting part is that these structures don’t simply produce Gold and nothing else.
They also create by-products that feed into subsequent production processes.
So don’t look at a by-product and immediately decide it’s useless.
In Sandustry, waste from one process can easily become the key ingredient for another.
Understanding Thermal Refining
Thermal structures allow you to transform materials by changing their state.
There are two main approaches:
Heat Thermal structures move materials toward a higher state:
Solid → Liquid → Gas
Cold Thermal structures work in the opposite direction:
Gas → Liquid → Solid
This becomes extremely useful once you start working with more advanced production chains.
A resource that seems difficult to transport as a solid might become much easier to move after converting it into a liquid, for example.
That leads to one of the most useful factory-building principles in the game:
Don’t always transport a resource in the form you found it.
Sometimes changing its state first makes your entire production system easier.
Research and Factory Levels
Research is essentially your technology progression.
You’ll spend Gold to unlock new Research, which opens up additional structures, tools, and systems.
However, you can’t simply buy every technology immediately.
More advanced Research is locked behind your Factory Level.
Your Factory Level represents your progress and the milestones you’ve achieved.
As you demonstrate that you’ve mastered the technologies already available to you, you’ll gain access to more advanced systems.
So if something is locked behind your Factory Level, don’t assume you’re missing a secret item. You may simply need to keep developing your factory.
Don’t Forget Upgrades
Research unlocks new technologies, while Upgrades improve the tools you already have.
These upgrades use Fluxite.
You can upgrade things such as:
- Grabber
- Flamethrower
- Drones
- Other inventory tools
If you’re wondering where to spend your early Fluxite, improving your Grabber’s capacity and capabilities is a very solid choice.
Being able to manually move larger amounts of material is surprisingly valuable during the early game, especially before your factory has enough automation to handle everything for you.
What Are Augments?
While you’re exploring the planet, you’ll encounter Artifacts.
These aren’t simply collectibles.
Artifacts can provide Augments that improve:
- Utility weapons
- Tools
- Movement
- Boost speed
- Boost duration
- Other abilities
Some Augments affect equipment such as your Gun, Rocket, or Shovel, while others improve your character directly.
So when you find an artifact, it’s worth investigating rather than treating it as another random object in the environment.
Capture Creatures With the Corraller
Wildlife isn’t just there to make the planet feel alive.
The Corraller lets you capture creatures you discover during exploration.
Once properly contained and used, creatures can provide new resources or even introduce entirely new processes into your factory.
For example, having enough Lumlings in a suitable location can produce a small but continuous supply of water.
That means your exploration isn’t completely separate from your factory progression.
The planet itself can become part of your production system.
Florinol Batteries vs Power Bricks
Once you start getting into energy production, you’ll encounter two different ways of storing energy.
Florinol Batteries use Florinol produced from dried Amethelis petals.
Power Bricks are made using copper molds filled with liquid copper.
They’re separate systems, so don’t assume that one is simply an upgraded version of the other.
How to Produce Energy
Energy production requires a fairly involved chain.
The basic process is:
Amethelis → Steam → Dry Amethelis → Florin Gas → Florinol Liquid → Florinol Battery
More specifically:
- Process Amethelis using steam to create Dry Amethelis.
- Heat Dry Amethelis to produce Florin gas.
- Use cold processing to condense Florin into Florinol liquid.
- Put the Florinol into a Florinol Battery.
It sounds complicated when written out, but once you’ve built each stage and connected the production chain, it becomes much easier to understand.
How to Move Lava
Lava is one of those resources that initially makes you wonder how you’re ever supposed to transport it.
You can’t simply treat it like ordinary solid material.
Once you’ve discovered a lava location, you can use a freezing method, such as the Cryo Gun, to freeze the lava into solid Scoria.
You can then mine the Scoria with your shovel or another suitable tool.
Once loose, the resulting Cinder can be transported to wherever you need it.
Later, when you expose Cinder to a sufficiently hot source such as a flamethrower, it can be converted back into lava.
So the trick is essentially:
Lava → Freeze → Scoria → Mine → Cinder → Transport → Reignite → Lava
It’s a clever example of how changing a resource’s state can solve a logistics problem.
Use Copy and Paste for Factory Building
If you’re building the same production setup repeatedly, stop rebuilding every machine by hand.
You can use:
C to select a structure.
Then:
Ctrl + C to copy.
And:
Ctrl + V to paste.
This is especially useful when you’re building repeated conveyor sections, production blocks, or modular factory layouts.
Once your factory gets bigger, this becomes one of those shortcuts you wonder how you ever lived without.
Use the Replace Hotkey
The default Ctrl replace function is incredibly useful when upgrading your factory.
Imagine you’ve spent twenty minutes building a beautiful conveyor network and then unlock a faster Mark 2 version.
You don’t necessarily need to tear everything apart.
Use the replace function to swap the existing structures for their upgraded versions.
It’s also handy when you realize that one machine is positioned incorrectly and want to adjust the layout without rebuilding the entire area.
Think About Resource State When Building
Here’s a factory-building trick that’s easy to miss.
If a resource is difficult to move in its current form, ask yourself:
Can I change its state first?
A solid material might be awkward to transport through one section of your factory, while its liquid or gas form could be much easier to move through pipes.
You don’t always want to convert everything, of course. Every conversion costs resources and adds complexity.
But when a logistics problem seems unnecessarily difficult, changing the material’s state may be the solution.
Use the Ancient Ruins
Don’t automatically clear every ruin you discover.
Some of the ancient structures have already been partially dug out and shaped.
They can sometimes provide surprisingly useful layouts for your factory.
Instead of building a completely flat industrial area from scratch, look at the terrain and ruins around you.
You may be able to incorporate existing structures into your production setup.
It can save time, and it also makes the factory feel much more connected to the world.
Filters Are Great for By-Products
As your factory becomes more complicated, you’ll eventually have production lines carrying a mixture of useful products and unwanted by-products.
This is exactly where filters become your best friend.
Instead of redesigning the entire production line, isolate the resource you need with a filter and send it toward its destination.
This is especially useful when several production chains share transportation infrastructure.
Don’t Get Stuck on Ancient Puzzles
You’ll eventually encounter puzzles left behind by the planet’s ancient inhabitants.
Some of them may appear impossible when you first discover them.
That’s not necessarily a problem.
You may simply be missing a tool or resource.
If you’ve spent ages trying to solve something and nothing makes sense, leave it alone and come back later.
There’s a good chance you’ll eventually unlock the exact tool or resource that makes the solution obvious.
That said, creating temporary bridges across teleport gaps using freezing mechanics or other clever tricks can sometimes help you reach places earlier than expected.
What to Do If You Get Stuck
If you somehow manage to trap yourself inside a puzzle or awkward location, don’t panic.
Use the Unstuck command from the pause menu.
It’s there for exactly these situations.
Choosing the Right Weapon
Different weapons are better suited to different obstacles.
Don’t assume that the weapon with the biggest damage number is automatically the best choice.
For example, a rocket launcher has plenty of destructive power, but it isn’t necessarily the best tool for every obstacle.
When dealing with solid ice stalactites, a flamethrower is considerably more effective.
The laser is another particularly useful tool once you have access to it.
It can consume a lot of power when fired continuously, but its ability to tunnel through many surface obstacles makes it extremely useful for exploration and excavation.
Best Beginner Tips for Sandustry
If you’re just starting out, these are the things I’d keep in mind:
Don’t build too big too early.
A compact factory is easier to understand and redesign.
Upgrade the Grabber early.
Better carrying capacity makes early-game manual work much less annoying.
Use filters aggressively.
They’re much easier than rebuilding an entire conveyor network just because one by-product is going somewhere it shouldn’t.
Scan unfamiliar resources.
The Material Scanner can tell you far more than guessing.
Keep by-products.
Something that looks like waste now may become an important ingredient later.
Think about state changes.
Solid, liquid, and gas aren’t just visual differences; they can completely change how easily something moves through your factory.
Explore between factory expansions.
Artifacts, creatures, resources, ruins, and new areas all contribute to progression.
Use copy/paste.
Once you’ve built a production module that works, duplicate it rather than rebuilding it.
Don’t be afraid to redesign.
Your first factory probably won’t be your best factory. That’s completely normal.
Return to puzzles later.
If you don’t have the right tool, there’s no shame in leaving the puzzle for now.
Sandustry starts off looking like a fairly simple resource-gathering game, but it doesn’t stay that way for long. Before you know it, you’re thinking about conveyor speeds, fluid separation, thermal transformations, by-products, creature-based production, energy chains, and whether turning a solid into a liquid will somehow make your factory work better.
That’s part of the fun.
The biggest thing I’d recommend is not trying to optimize everything immediately. Learn what each system does first, build something that works, and then improve it once you understand the production chain.
Your first factory might look messy. Mine would too.
The important part is that it works. Once you understand the systems, you can always come back, replace those old conveyors, clean up the logistics, add filters, duplicate production blocks, and turn that early-game mess into something that actually looks like a proper industrial operation.
Welcome to the planet, Prospector. Now go make some sand money.