Shaker already available
Prepare a Collector area below the intended machine, feed Wet Sand onto the Shaker and leave separate exits for Gold and Residue. Use the three observation points to check the complete route.
Start · First factory · Verified 2026-09-09
Sandustry Beginner Guide
Build one complete, observable chain before scaling: Wet Sand in, Gold and Residue out, Gold stored, next bottleneck identified.
Quick answer
What to do
Start with Sand + Water → Wet Sand → Shaker. Keep the space below the Shaker open for Gold, give Residue a side exit, and route Gold into Collector blocks before expecting it to fund research.
Before your first Shaker: check your starting state
Check whether the Shaker is already available in your save. The current official Research table lists it at 20 Gold, but that cost alone does not explain how every tutorial or skipped-tutorial start reaches the unlock.
Shaker still locked
Continue the current in-game tutorial objective and check the Research panel. The exact manual-shaking gesture and first-20-Gold unlock sequence in v0.5.6 are not yet verified by this guide.
Prepare the material you will need
- Release Sand from Dirt. Breaking Dirt supplies Sand; keep the loose material where you can reach it.
- Move Sand into Water. The starting Grabber moves one material type at a time. Bring Sand into contact with Water to make Wet Sand.
- Prove storage before scaling. Once the Shaker is available, watch Gold reach Collector tiles. Loose Gold outside them does not count toward the bank.
Watch the earlier v0.5.4 walkthrough
Ic0n Gaming's August 17 video describes manual shaking, then builds with an available Shaker. It is not a verified v0.5.6 tutorial walkthrough. Use these chapters for the material and layout demonstration; key bindings and the starting unlock state may differ.
The first verified loop
Sand + Water→Wet Sand→Shaker→Gold ↓ + Residue →
One Sand and one Water become two Wet Sand pixels. Each Wet Sand placed on a Shaker becomes Residue and has a one-in-four chance to also produce one Gold. Treat Gold and Residue as two separate outputs from the moment you place the machine.
Build for visibility before throughput
- Use a small, contained Water feed so a mistake cannot drain the whole reservoir.
- Leave open space below the Shaker; Gold is the solid allowed through.
- Give slow-moving Residue a clear side outlet instead of piling it over the input.
- Put a Collector on the Gold route so the resource counts toward research.
A compact line that you can inspect is more useful than a large line with hidden reactions. Scale only after every output reaches its intended destination.
Choose research by the bottleneck
The official tree starts with documented options such as Shaker and Logistics, then expands into Filters, Kinetic Press, Fluids and later tools. There is no official universal “best order.” If solids cannot reach the next stage, logistics is the problem. If mixed output cannot be separated, filtering is the problem. If Water transport is the constraint, plan toward Fluids.
Use the research checklist to record progress without turning that framework into a game rule.
Four checks when the line stops
- State: Is the input actually Wet Sand?
- Space: Can Gold leave below and Residue leave above?
- Storage: Is Gold reaching a Collector?
- Version: Does the guide date match the current Early Access build?