Sandustry Updates

The latest Sandustry update is Update #4 (v0.5.7), released September 14, 2026. Pipes no longer connect automatically to adjacent pipes, building across a pipe line creates a Pipe Bridge, and several buildings that had stopped working were fixed. Lava no longer leaks through Advanced Filter Walls. The developer called this likely the last minor patch before the first big content update; smaller hotfixes may still follow. Sandustry entered Early Access on August 13, 2026. There is no dated official roadmap: the plan is roughly a year in Early Access, with sandustry.nolt.io deciding priorities. This page tracks every official Steam patch. Check back after each one.

The Early Access updates so far

Version numbers and dates below come from the official Steam announcements.

Update #4 - v0.5.7 (September 14, 2026). One month after Early Access. The developer said this is likely the last minor patch before the first big content update, with smaller hotfixes still possible because the patch hardens the engine. Official changelog:

• Pipes no longer connect to adjacent pipes by themselves. Extend a network by starting or ending on an existing pipe tile.
• Building over a crossing pipe line creates a Pipe Bridge. The developer asked players to report quirks in that placement.
• The pipe overlay shows the meta color of the last liquid that went through.
• In Pipes Mode you can select, move, and copy/paste pipes with the normal tools. Undo includes pipes. Alt+C selects structures and pipes together for one blueprint.
• Multiple bugs that made buildings stop working and stop propagating were fixed. The note says unrelated causes may still linger, and asks whether a reload fixes whatever you still see.
• Lava can no longer leak through Advanced Filter Walls.
• Presence Sensors no longer stay active after contained elements expire on worker threads.
• Picking a Filter Wall can no longer create a pass-through Filter.
• Conveyor Portals no longer attach to the wrong pair after a Ctrl+H mirror.
• Moving the player no longer blocks overriding structures, and the Override / Replace Structures binding can be rebound.
• Open Doors let Aerokinetic Fan airflow through. Cursor tooltips account for cursor size.
• The Vacuum can no longer duplicate elements or be filled with Clouds.
• Hauler Lines can no longer be assigned inside artifact rooms. Existing ones can be reassigned from the hotbar overlay.
• The Volcanizer icon no longer flickers its cooldown animation while in use.

The same post points new players to the Hooded Horse official wiki at wiki.hoodedhorse.com/Sandustry/Sandustry_Official_Wiki and says that wiki is still growing.

Update #3 - v0.5.6 (September 3, 2026). The developer called this another fix-and-QoL drop, with a few new toys, while Major Update #1 is still cooking. Official changelog:

• Pet critters by moving over them; they get a temporary boost. Voltblub energy output is higher in general.
• Lava now destroys Fluxite, Redsoil and Strataform terrain. Lava density is 200.
• A cold Thermal Buffer (negative temperature) takes less heat from lava, and that lava converts back to Cinder instead of being fully consumed.
• You can remove an Aura Extractor after crystallization has started. Removed crystals sit in a buffer and come back out as Auralite when you rebuild the Extractor.
• Flower calamity: shooting or digging a growing seedling tries to turn it back into Wet Seeds; a seedling stuck between buildings gives up and tries the same. One Wet Seed still equals one flower.
• Laser now melts Ice. Several red-block bugs and stuck Conveyor Portals were fixed. Thermal Buffers no longer consume lava in artifact rooms; a puzzle soft-lock from that should self-heal on load.
• Aura no longer refreshes the full tech tree in a way that caused renderer crashes. Some GPU diagnostics were replaced. The mods branch is on 0.5.6, with new Sandkit hooks at sandustry.com/sandkit.html.

Update #2 - v0.5.5 (August 19, 2026). The headline is crash diagnostics: the game now writes detailed logs (on Windows under AppData, on Mac in ~/Library/Logs/sandustry, on Linux in ~/.config/sandustry), with an optional Crashpad crash dump the developer can ask affected players to enable. Tutorial videos were converted to animated images, which fixes a GPU crash when hovering previews and an OBS capture bug. Quality-of-life additions include Alt+Enter fullscreen toggling, the game remembering your last monitor, and a workaround for the macOS right-click freeze. The tutorial softlock caused by the radial menu was fixed, and the Aura Extractor guidance and swarm target indicators were improved.

Update #1 - v0.5.4 (August 16, 2026). Filter editing got much better: you can now reconfigure a placed filter through the filter overlay labels or "Edit last placed", instead of demolishing and rebuilding it, with clearer Allow/Block visuals (credited to streamer Cohh's demonstration). The Tier 5 softlock that persisted after anomaly investigation was fixed, with old saves repaired automatically. The notorious "indestructible red block" got a workaround - blocks within 256 tiles can now be deleted, and puzzle-door red blocks can be toggled again - though the root-cause fix touches core code and is not ready yet. Zoom in and zoom out became rebindable keys; the developer noted that zooming out further than the default is not currently possible due to rendering engine limits, but is being worked on.

Hotfix - v0.5.3 (August 14, 2026). A day-one stability pass: better logging and memory optimizations, tutorial videos now unload correctly to prevent decoder exhaustion, and cloud particle memory use dropped sharply. Factory tiers blocked by an objective now show why they are blocked, and special objectives are visually clearer. A new launch flag --sandustry-no-overlay-gpu-flags may prevent crashes at the cost of the Steam overlay (achievements still work).

The launch-day announcement itself did not state a version number, so treat v0.5.3 as the first confirmed version - the launch build's number was never published.

The demo era: eight hotfixes and a rewrite

Before Early Access, Sandustry had a free demo (early 2025): nearly 100,000 players, about 6 hours average playtime, and over 50 community mods. It received eight hotfixes, from the February 2025 burst through Hotfix 8 (flower growth, Ctrl-held structure replacement, fuse threshold 100 to 300).

The biggest demo-era change was invisible: the developer rewrote the simulation engine and movement, which made the Early Access destructible-pixel world possible.

The official roadmap

There is no dated roadmap - the developer has said a fixed roadmap is risky for a solo developer - but the official Early Access Q&A on Steam states the plan:

• Duration: roughly one year in Early Access, adjusting to player feedback
• Content: more buildings, resources, production chains, missions, biomes and technologies, with more refined procedural generation toward 1.0
• Price: may increase during Early Access as content grows (the 35% launch discount ended August 27, 2026; the standard price is now $14.99)

In April 2025 the developer also teased six major content areas hoped for at Early Access launch: the World Engine (procedural generation and new biomes), Advanced Materials, Core Descent (new drilling and laser mining), the Quantum Collider, Deepmire (a hostile spreading substance blocking deep caves) and Creative Mode. Note this was a pre-launch preview - the launch announcements did not confirm which of the six made it into the EA build, so treat it as direction, not a checklist.

Feature requests have an official home: sandustry.nolt.io, the board Update #1 explicitly points to for voting on priorities.

Modding note (August 28, 2026)

Between Update #2 and #3 the developer posted Modding & What's Next. Workshop was already past 125 mods. The updated framework and API doc went to an experimental Steam branch; sandustry.com/sandkit.html is the official API page. Mods still need that opt-in branch. Update #3 later moved the mods branch to 0.5.6.

What's next

As of Update #4 (14 Sep 2026), the developer expects this to be the last minor patch before the first big content update. Smaller hotfixes may still ship. Feature votes stay on sandustry.nolt.io.

When the next patch drops, this page gets updated. The version chain so far is v0.5.3, v0.5.4, v0.5.5, v0.5.6, v0.5.7.