Heat is not just damage or power in Sandustry; it is a way to change which logistics system a resource can use. Ice can become water, water can become Steam, lava can be frozen into a movable solid, and the launch Energy chain deliberately moves from plant material to gas to liquid. A reliable build names the expected state after every conversion and refuses to feed the next stage until that state appears.
The evidence boundary is Sandustry’s August 13, 2026 Early Access build. This route does not claim fixed boiling temperatures, heat radius, conversion time, water recovery percentage, or universal machine spacing. Those details are not established by the captured launch sources and may change. Use the Material Scanner, current objective text, visible material state, and the current patch as the authority.
Read hot and cold as opposite state directions
The launch guide gives a compact model for Thermal structures:
- Hot: solid becomes liquid; liquid becomes gas.
- Cold: gas becomes liquid; liquid becomes solid.
This model is more useful than memorizing one long recipe list. When a process will not continue, identify the current state, the required next state, and which direction the conversion must move. Heating a gas does not satisfy a gas-to-liquid checkpoint. Cooling a solid does not create the liquid that a Pump expects.
The Material Scanner Upgrade for the Grabber helps when the resource name or possible refinement is unclear. Scan the actual material at the failed handoff. Do not infer its state from the color of the nearby pile or from the machine you intended to build.
Ice to water to Steam is a world cycle, not a sealed recipe
The official description establishes the sequence: heat melts ice into water; enough heat brings water to a boil; Steam rises; if it reaches the sky, it can return as rain. Each arrow changes the factory problem.
- Ice is a solid. It can block a route and must receive sufficient heat before ordinary liquid handling applies.
- Water is a liquid. It can collect, soak nearby sand, and move through the supported Pump, Pipe, and Liquid Vent system.
- Steam is a gas. It rises instead of remaining in the water basin and is used by later production, including the Energy chain.
- Rain returns water to the world. Steam allowed to escape upward is not still available at the original boiler location.
Decide whether the current task needs water, Steam at a production input, or atmospheric cycling. If the goal is simply to create water, continuing to heat the same basin can remove that water as Steam. If the goal is Steam, a roof or random wall is not automatically a supported collector; build around the current researched structures and the visible flow rather than assuming a sealed pressure system.
A simple test uses a small ice sample in a contained, observable area. Apply heat and look for liquid water. Continue only when the next task explicitly needs Steam. If the water vanishes upward but the Steam never reaches its consumer, the conversion succeeded and the capture or placement failed.
Keep liquid transport separate from the boiler decision
Ordinary fluids move through a Pump connected by Pipes to a Liquid Vent. The intake needs fluid no lower than the Pump, while the receiving pool must stay beneath the Vent for delivery to continue. This creates a clean division of responsibility:
- The thermal area decides what state exists.
- The Pump decides whether ordinary liquid is available at the intake.
- The Pipe connects the route.
- The Vent decides where the liquid emerges and stops when the destination rises to it.
If no water arrives at a boiler, first inspect the Pump source level and Vent destination level. Do not increase heat at an empty boiler. If several liquid types share a Pipe, the Vent releases the closest one and cannot be configured to choose a specific fluid. Separate lines prevent an unexpected liquid from occupying a conversion area meant for water.
The normal liquid system excludes molten fluids. That rule is the boundary between water logistics and lava logistics; a route that works for water is not proof that it can pump lava.
Move lava by changing it into a solid first
The launch guide’s supported process is deliberately indirect:
- Freeze lava until it becomes solid Scoria.
- Mine the Scoria with the Shovel or another suitable tool.
- Collect the resulting loose Cinder.
- Move Cinder as a solid to the destination.
- Apply a sufficiently hot source, such as the Flamethrower, to turn Cinder back into lava.
The launch guide suggests the Cryo Gun as a likely freezing tool rather than declaring one permanent mandatory device. Use the current client to identify a cold source that actually produces Scoria. The success signal for the first stage is the named solid, not simply a darker-looking lava edge.
Build the destination before reheating Cinder. Lava is useful precisely because it is hot and molten; those properties also make an uncontained conversion dangerous to nearby material. Place a small Cinder batch in the intended basin, clear unrelated solids, apply heat, and verify that lava remains where the next process needs it. Only then connect a continuous Cinder route.
This sequence also makes diagnosis precise. Scoria that cannot be mined indicates a tool or interaction problem. Cinder that never arrives is a solid-logistics problem. Cinder that arrives but stays solid is a heating problem. Lava that forms and escapes is a destination-shape problem. Treating all four as “the lava line is broken” hides the useful checkpoint.
The Florinol Energy chain has five inspectable states
The launch guide provides a specific Energy production route:
Amethelis → Steam creates Dry Amethelis → Heat creates Florin gas → Cold condenses Florin into Florinol liquid → Florinol enters a Florinol Battery.
| Checkpoint | Expected material or state | First thing to inspect when it is missing |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amethelis at the Steam process | Solid delivery and input alignment |
| 2 | Dry Amethelis | Whether Steam actually reaches the material |
| 3 | Florin as a gas | Whether the dry material passes through the hot conversion |
| 4 | Florinol as a liquid | Whether Florin reaches a cold conversion area |
| 5 | Florinol accepted by the Battery | Liquid collection, delivery, and Battery input state |
Do not merge the hot and cold zones into one visually dense chamber while learning the chain. Florin must first exist as gas and then reach the cold step. If no Florinol appears, check whether the hot step ever produced Florin; cooling the wrong input cannot repair a missing earlier conversion.
Florinol Batteries and power bricks are separate Energy sources. The launch guide describes the battery route above and identifies power bricks as copper molds filled with liquid copper. Do not substitute one chain for the other merely because both add Energy. Follow the objective and the structure you are actually trying to supply.
Protect phase boundaries from sorting mistakes
Phase-change factories fail when conversion and separation are treated as the same operation. Keep a buffer or visible drop between them so the produced material can be identified before it enters the next device.
- A Basic Filter selects one solid resource with Allow or Block.
- An Advanced Filter extends the same one-resource rule to Solid, Liquid, and Gas.
- An ordinary Liquid Vent cannot choose among multiple liquids in a shared Pipe.
- Molten fluid is outside the ordinary Pump/Pipe/Vent route.
For the Energy chain, these boundaries suggest a practical layout: keep Amethelis delivery visible, give Dry Amethelis its own solid handoff, place the Florin hot output where its movement can be seen, condense in a separate cold area, and collect Florinol before the Battery. This is a diagnostic layout, not a claim about one optimal shape. After the chain works, copy or compress the proven modules.
Use failure signals instead of invented temperature numbers
The launch evidence does not establish a universal temperature display, boiling point, radius, or timing table. You do not need those numbers to make a reliable decision:
- Ice remains solid: heat is absent, insufficient, or not reaching the material.
- Water appears but Steam does not: the first conversion worked; the second has not.
- Steam rises away from the consumer: generation worked; capture or placement did not.
- Lava will not enter an ordinary liquid line: use the Scoria/Cinder route.
- Dry Amethelis exists but no Florin appears: inspect the hot stage.
- Florin exists but no Florinol appears: inspect cold contact and liquid collection.
- Florinol reaches the Battery area but Energy does not change: inspect the Battery input and current objective, not the upstream Steam generator.
When a patch changes a structure, the visible state checkpoints still show where the current client diverges from the planned chain. Test one conversion with a small batch, record what the Material Scanner calls the output, then reopen continuous input. The factory is ready to scale when every arrow in the chain can be pointed to on screen.
Sources & credits
The official Sandustry Steam page documents the physical-resource model and ice-water-Steam-rain cycle; the release announcement fixes the Early Access date. Hot/cold direction, ordinary-liquid limits, the Scoria/Cinder lava move, and the Florinol Energy sequence come from the developer-linked Sandustry Beginner’s Guide. The launch-window hands-on article is used only as a second check for the Flamethrower and ice-to-water boundary.