Water Guide: Lumlings, Steam, Condensation, and Recovery

Water Guide: Lumlings, Steam, Condensation, and Recovery

Your Shakers were humming five minutes ago. Now dry Sand is piling up, the Water pool has become a damp rumor, and one loose stream is escaping through a corner like it has somewhere better to be. Stop the Sand feed first. In Sandustry, Water is a physical material, not a number in a tank, so fixing the supply means controlling every place it can flow, react, or change state.

Tested build: v0.5.7, vanilla. Seed label for all world examples: N/A — controlled test cell; no world route. The layouts below are player-built and do not depend on terrain. Generated areas and Lumling totals can vary by seed, so no nearby pool, creature count, or biome route is universal.

Stage 1: Save the Early Water Supply

Early Water comes from surface lakes and underground deposits. Scout for a visible pool, then build the receiving basin and downhill channel before opening the source. Gravity will move Water for free, but it will also send Water through an unfinished corner for free. Splendid customer service from the planet.

1. Pause dry Sand: Close the Sand chute before touching the reservoir. One Sand pixel touching one Water pixel replaces both with two Wet Sand pixels. A pile leaning against the tank can quietly drink the entire supply.
2. Build a sealed basin: Use solid walls and a solid floor. Add an extra block behind every diagonal corner because Water can slip between two blocks that meet only at their corners. Do not use a standard Filter as a tank wall; standard Filters allow Water through.
3. Separate storage from washing: Keep the main reservoir behind a solid wall. Feed a small washer cell through a narrow gravity outlet or, later, a Liquid Vent. The only Sand-to-Water contact should happen inside that washer.
4. Add overflow: Put a lip near the top of the main tank that spills into a second, lower basin. This catches rain, Lumling output, and overfilled vents instead of sending the surplus across your belts.
5. Keep an emergency reserve: Seal one small cistern away from normal production. Use it only to restart the Gold line after a leak or clog. A separate reserve is safer than one heroic mega-puddle connected to everything.

Natural pool → sealed storage → metered washer → Wet Sand

Stage 2: Pump Without Feeding the Sand

The Tier 3 Fluids research unlocks the Pump, Pipe, and Liquid Vent. Place the Pump in a clean side pocket where Water touches it. Keep that pocket free of Sand, Seeds, Snow, and other non-liquid material; anything lodged inside a Pump can stop its liquid intake. Mount the Pump slightly above the reservoir floor if you want a dead-stock reserve that the main line cannot drain.

Run a dedicated Water Pipe to a Liquid Vent above the washer basin. Keep the Vent above the normal fill line because it stops releasing liquid once roughly three-quarters of it is submerged. In v0.5.7, begin or end a new Pipe run on an existing Pipe tile when extending a network. Avoid mixing fluids in the same network: Pumps accept any liquid except Lava, while Vents cannot filter which connected liquid comes out.

Stage 3: Turn Lumlings Into a Steady Drip

A Lumling is a drifting cave critter that releases small bursts of Water. After unlocking the Corraller, capture the Lumlings you find and release them into a Critter Fence pen above a separate catch basin. Their locations and total count vary between generated worlds, so treat each one as useful throughput rather than part of a fixed ratio.

1. Build the Critter Fence pen above the collection tank, not inside it.
2. Give the pen a draining floor or outlet so new Water immediately falls into the lower basin.
3. Keep the area around each Lumling clear. Its production timer pauses when Water occupies the nearby 4-by-4 area. Other liquids and pooled gas can also stop production.
4. Place the Pump in the lower tank, safely below the pen. The Lumlings stay dry while their output is moved to storage or the washer.
5. Watch one full cycle before adding more infrastructure. A working Lumling releases visible Water; a submerged one merely enjoys the pool you accidentally built for it.

In v0.5.7, a Lumling's base cycle releases up to 12 Water pixels per burst, with 6 to 10 seconds between bursts when it has enough space. Petting a critter temporarily boosts its capabilities, so do not treat the base cycle as a hard maximum. Measure the combined output in your enclosure, then add storage so bursts can collect between production cycles.

Stage 4: Use Snow, Steam, and Rain

The Tier 2 Cryoblaster creates Snow without consuming Water. You can also dig Frostbed to collect Snow; Frostbed itself does not melt. Burn Snow with Fire to make Steam, the rising gas used for vertical Water recovery. The later Snowmaker is different: it consumes Water and Energy to turn four Water pixels into four Snow pixels. That machine stores or relocates an existing supply; it is not a new source by itself.

Cryoblaster Snow → Fire → Steam ↑ open shaft → sky → rain ↓ catch basin

Build the rain basin at the surface before heating Snow or Water. Make it wider than the Steam shaft and slope its floor toward storage. Seal side gaps and remove ledges from the shaft because Steam rises until it hits a ceiling, then pools there. Regular Steam that reaches the sky condenses and returns as rain. Blocks can steer the rising gas, but the route must remain open above.

Snow also freezes deep Water into Ice. Fire melts Ice back into Water, so freezing can hold a supply in place until you need it. Test this in a small side chamber first. Snow touching only a shallow layer of Water may disappear without forming useful Ice, while escaped Snow can freeze the main reservoir and stop its Pump.

Stage 5: Condense Steam Inside the Factory

The Tier 4 Drying & Condensing research unlocks the Condenser, a machine that turns Steam into Water without sending it to the sky. Orientation matters:

Snow or cold Thermal Buffer touching the top + Steam touching the bottom → Condenser → Water

Build a sealed gas chamber under the Condenser so rising Steam contacts its bottom face. Put Snow directly on the top face, or feed that face with a cold Thermal Buffer. Leave room below for the new Water to fall into a clean basin. If the machine appears idle, check the two contacts separately: cold must touch the top at the same moment Steam touches the bottom.

A Steam Turbine produces Depleted Steam. It still rises, but it does not become rain at the sky. Route Depleted Steam into a Condenser or it is lost from the useful loop. This makes machine condensation the correct recovery path for a power room, while sky rain works for ordinary Steam.

Measured Water-Loop Test

Prove a loop in a small chamber before connecting it to the factory. Disable Lumlings, Snow production, Pumps from outside tanks, and every Water consumer. If you have the Hydro Sponge Grabber upgrade, place four completely full 5-by-5 loads into the test basin for a starting amount of 100 Water pixels. Otherwise, use a narrow tank and mark the exact starting surface height.

1. Record Water at 0 seconds.
2. Start the heat source and record Water still pooled at 30, 60, and 120 seconds. Note Steam still in transit rather than counting it as lost.
3. Stop the heat and wait until the chamber contains no visible Steam and no more Water is returning.
4. Count or measure all recovered Water, including the overflow basin.
5. Compare final Water with the starting 100 pixels. Less means the layout leaks, leaves Steam trapped, or sends Water outside the catcher. Equal means the test recycled the batch. Do not call it lossless until repeated runs give the same result in v0.5.7.

For a Condenser test, roof the chamber so sky rain cannot enter. For a sky-rain test, first run the empty catcher for the same time and note any background rain. Water that skitters without settling for about 45 seconds can despawn into the world's rain buffer and fall much later. That delayed Water can make one Steam run look net-positive even though the test is only reclaiming old losses. Never call a loop infinite or profitable from one rainy result.

When the Reservoir Vanishes

• Water falls while Sand rises: Close the Sand gate. Clear every grain touching storage, then restart with only the small washer cell exposed.
• The Pump stops: Check whether Water reaches it, clear non-liquid material from inside it, inspect the v0.5.7 Pipe connection, and make sure the destination Vent is not submerged.
• Lumlings stop: Drain their pen, clear Steam or other gas around them, and restore a dry 4-by-4 production area.
• Steam never returns: Inspect the shaft for ceilings and side pockets. For a Condenser, confirm cold on top and Steam below at the same time.
• Water appears elsewhere later: Follow the overflow and rain catchers before assuming duplication. The world buffer may be returning Water that vanished earlier.

To regain momentum, keep every consumer off, recover Water from the overflow basin with a Pump or Hydro Sponge, and refill the emergency cistern first. Then restart one Wet Sand cell and one Shaker. Once that pair runs without lowering the reserve, reconnect the next branch. That is the Sandustry dream in miniature: Water, heat, gravity, and one unruly mountain of Sand finally working for you.