Sandustry Guide and Wiki

materials

Refining Gold from Sand in Sandustry – A Step-by-Step Stable Line

Learn how to refine gold from sand in Sandustry with contained wetting, visible sifting, separate residue routing, and safe scale-up tests.

Early Access · Checked 2026-08-21

Use the verified core loop

The current Steam description states that sand absorbs nearby water to provide wet sand and that wet sand can be sifted for gold. This is the verified boundary of the recipe used here. Exact pixel ratios, cycle speeds, and optimal geometry are intentionally left to observation because the game launched in Early Access on August 13, 2026 and can change. Build the line as a sequence of controlled states: dry feed, wetting, conditioned feed, sifting, gold collection, and residue collection.

Protect the water supply

Do not connect your full reservoir to an untested chamber. Use a smaller header or isolated test amount, with a manual shutoff and an overflow that returns to safe containment. Place the wetting chamber where a breach cannot drain into the mine or another process. Give yourself access to clear dry sand without opening the water wall. Mark the intended water line and observe whether sand piles above it, blocks an outlet, or sends water backward toward the feed.

Make wetting observable

Introduce sand slowly across a broad enough contact area that you can see whether material leaves uniformly. Avoid a tall compact column on the first attempt: it hides dry pockets and makes bridging difficult to diagnose. Provide a low, controlled wet-sand outlet and a separate emergency drain. If the outlet alternates between dry and flooded, reduce input and change one geometric variable at a time. Record the stable run duration rather than assuming a brief success proves continuous operation.

Separate every sifter output

Route the desired gold output to a clearly bounded collector. Route residue or any other observed output to its own holding area. Do not dispose of an unfamiliar byproduct merely because the first technology tier does not use it; official material emphasizes multistep processing, and later unlocks may create value. Make both outputs visible so a full collector cannot silently block the sifter. When output slows, check the collectors before modifying the wetting ratio.

Run a commissioning test

Start with empty downstream collectors and a measured sample of input. Observe the complete path and note the time until the first output, then the sustained output over a longer window. Stop water, confirm sand cannot bury the chamber, restore water, and confirm recovery. Stop the sifter output and confirm overflow remains contained. Save and reload once before declaring the design stable. Enter the conservative sustained rate in the calculator and date the measurement.

Expand without losing control

Scale by duplicating the smallest stable module or widening the proven bottleneck. Keep water controls independent for each module if practical. A shared reservoir can feed several lines, but each branch needs isolation so one blockage does not consume or redirect the entire supply. Preserve a sample bay for testing changes after patches. Link your blueprint note to the water-management and automation guides so future you can recover the assumptions behind the layout.

Approve the line with a material balance

Use a controlled input batch and record where every observed material finishes: still waiting as dry feed, present in the wetting chamber, delivered to processing, collected as value, stored as byproduct, or quarantined after recovery. The table is diagnostic rather than a claim about exact recipe ratios. Missing or growing inventory shows which boundary needs inspection. Repeat after clearing buffers and after one restart. If the balance differs materially, the line may retain pixels in geometry or behave differently at its normal fill level. Approve scaling only when both runs remain contained, every destination is named, and the shutdown procedure can recover the remaining inventory without mixing it into raw feed.

Sources and evidence notes

Frequently Asked Questions