How to move and use lava — freezing it into Cinder, building a temperature farm, and the Steam–Water–Lava cycle.
Lava is the hot liquid of Sandustry. It is a powerful heat source and a transport problem at the same time — lava cannot travel through normal pipes while it is molten.
Lava disperses small flame bits as it sits, and those flames generate Temperature that can feed hot pipes and hot machines.
The reliable way to move lava is to change its state. Freeze lava with the Cryoblaster — it becomes solid Cinder. Transport the Cinder as a normal solid (or fill a tank with it), then reignite it with a hot source to convert it back into lava.
This state-change trick is a core Sandustry principle: when a resource cannot be transported in its current state, convert it.
A proven technique is to build a large, flat, single-layer area of lava. As the lava disperses flame bits, it radiates Temperature — enough to run burner belts, pyro dispensers and other heat-consuming machinery nearby.
Heat is one of the most persistent problems in Sandustry because it does not regenerate automatically. A big flat lava field is one way to have a renewable heat source instead of manually recharging everything.
Steam rises, cools into water, falls down, touches lava, and turns back into steam — an endless loop. When this happens at a lava interface, it keeps cycling and can cause constant 'rain' over your factory.
Use Advanced Filters set to Block water to make a one-way valve, or wall off your lava field, to keep the cycle from flooding your build.
FAQ
Freeze it into Cinder, transport the Cinder as a solid (or fill a tank with it), then reignite it with a hot source to convert it back into lava. Molten lava cannot travel through normal pipes.
In the demo, lava decayed when left alone. The full game may be more optimized, but do not count on a lava pool lasting forever without checking.
Build a large flat lava field. The flame bits it disperses generate Temperature, which can feed burner belts, pyro dispensers and other heat-consuming machines.
Steam rises, cools into water, falls, touches lava, and becomes steam again. Use an Advanced Filter set to Block water as a one-way valve, or wall off the interface.