how to get gold Sandustry
How to get gold Sandustry is the same loop at every scale: Wet Sand on a Shaker, then Residue processing. Official Gold density is 300. Official Shaker chance is about one Gold pixel in four Wet Sand pixels. Community timers of 20 to 25 percent are the same fraction written as a range. Official store copy, the Hooded Horse wiki roster, and Steam patch notes are the only sources for numbers on this page. Community names stay in the alias column.
Shake only Wet Sand
Dry Sand on the screen is a no-op. Mix in a small pool using the 1+1=2 rule, scoop Wet Sand from the floor, and land it on the high tile of a diagonal Shaker. Gold is heavy. Give it a pit or a Collector so flakes do not roll back into Residue.
4 Wet Sand≈1 Gold+3 Residue
If yield looks worse than a quarter, check three things before you blame the patch. Is dry Sand riding the belt. Is the output clogged so new pixels never finish. Is the Shaker standing flat so the pile never crosses the screen.
The Residue second pass
Most of the Shaker output is Residue, officially, or Slag in demo slang. Burn it with a Flamethrower or a thin lava film, then run Burnt Residue through the Kinetic Press. That Press is the documented extra Gold machine and the spore source for Planter Boxes. Ignoring Residue is how factories drown in their own byproduct.
Do not spend Gold flakes as decoration. They are the research wallet. Liquid Gold exists as an official pixel and is not confirmed as a research currency. Keep solid Gold in a bin the Collector can see.
Scaling without starving
Double Wet Sand production before you double Shakers. Pair every new screen with Residue evacuation. Official beginner ratios quote a rough world mix of 2 sand : 3 water : 4 redsand producing about 3 gold : 8 Fluxite. That is a campaign-level mix, not a per-minute belt calculator. Use it to decide whether you are short on water or short on red layers, not to invent a 4.17 pixel theorem.
Rockets open volume. They are a bad way to precision-cut a Shaker deck and, after Demo Hotfix 8, a worse way to quarry Redsand. Flamethrowers and belts scale cleaner.
A gold line you can rebuild
Put the wetting tank at grade, the Shaker bank one step down, and the Residue burn one step below that. Gravity then does the first sort for you. Gold pits sit under the Shaker lip because density 300 wants the bottom. Collectors watch that pit. A cover stops steam from a nearby burn lane raining back into the tank.
When you add the Kinetic Press, give it its own Burnt Residue trunk. Mixing fresh Residue with Burnt Residue makes the Press eat raw waste and stall. Spores from the Press should peel off to a planter belt, not fall into the Gold bin. That is the entire second-pass layout.
Deep sand is a Logistics problem, not a new recipe. Launcher stairs or a Hauler bridge bring the same Wet Sand rule back to the same screen. If you change the recipe because the pit is deeper, you are inventing a mechanic the official pages do not describe.
More detail worth keeping
Gold is also a story object. Steam achievements highlight Gold in the Bin, which is a Collector problem, and Promotion Protocol, which sounds like Factory Level. Do not melt Gold into Liquid Gold to make it 'safer'. No official page says liquid flakes spend on the research desk. Keep solids in a walled pit. If you are flooding the pit with Residue, your Filter or your downhill trench is wrong. If you are starving the pit, your Wet Sand rule is wrong. There is no third currency hiding in the Shaker. There is only the quarter-chance and the Press. Community 20 to 25 percent is not a different theory. It is the same official quarter written as a session average.
Practice that survives a patch
Count flakes in the pit, not pixels on the Shaker lip. The lip lies when Residue is stacked in front of Gold. A Collector is cheaper than a second Shaker and it tells the truth. If the Collector is idle, the chance is not broken. The path to the pit is. Wall the downhill side. Leave the uphill side open for the screen. That shape is the whole Gold building.
Close the loop
A good Gold pit is ugly. High walls, one Collector, no scenic water feature. Scenic water features become steam and then rain and then Wet Residue, which is not a product anyone asked for.
When you add the second Shaker, add the second Residue trench first. The new screen will print waste immediately. The new Gold will wait. People do this backwards because Gold is the word on the research desk. Residue is the word on the floor.
Frequently asked questions
What is the official Shaker rate?
About one Gold in four Wet Sand pixels. Community logs of 20 to 25 percent match that fraction.
Does Liquid Gold buy research?
No first-party page says it does. Spend solid Gold.
Why is my Gold disappearing?
It is dense and rolls. Add a Collector or a walled pit. Check that a filter is not sending flakes into the Residue burn.